Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.10.1977, Qupperneq 204

SUMMARY
The subject of the present study is a version of the sagas of the kings of iSTorway
preserved in two medieval Icelandic manuseripts, Hulda (AM 66 fol.) and Hrokkin-
skinna (GI. kgl. sml. 1010 fol.). This version of the kings’ sagas (H-Hr.) covers
the period from 1035 to 1177 and is for the most part a eompilation of Morkin-
skinna (Msk.) and Heimskringla (Hkr.).
Introduction.
The introduction provides a brief review of previous scholarly opinion on the
character of H-Hr. and defines the purpose of the present investigation.
It was apparent to eighteenth and nineteenth century scholars as far back as
Årni Magnusson that H-Hr. drew upon Hkr., but the opposite view, that H-Hr.
represents the source used by Snorri, was also put forward from time to time:
it was suggested as a possibility by P. E. Muller and energetically defended by
GuObrandur Vigfusson. Gustav Storm’s monograph on Snorre Sturlassons Historie-
skrivning (Copenhagen 1873) was the first study to clarify in broad outline the
relationship between Hkr. and the interpolated and conflated versions of the
kings’ sagas (H-Hr., the ‘Greatest saga of Olaf Tryggvason’ and the interpolated
versions of the saga of Olaf the Saint). Storm realized that the later works which
drew upon Hkr. could also contribute to the textual eriticism of their source —
an insight which was not, however, exploited by Finnur Jonsson in liis edition of
Hkr. (HkrF.T 1893-1901), which is the only edition with a substantial critical
apparatus so far to have been published.
H-Hr. is based on texts of Hkr. and Msk. no longer extant as well as on a number
of other writings. The primary aim of this study is to establish the position of
these lost texts in relation to those that have been preserved, and to consider the
significance of the results thus obtained for the textual evaluation of the extant
manuseripts.
I. H ULD A-H R O tv KINSKINNA
1. Hulcla.
Hulda (H) can be dated on palæographical and orthographic evidence to the
fourteenth century; the same or perhaps a closely related hånd is found inter alia
in two charters issued in 1375 at the monastery at Munkapverå (EyjafjorSur).
It seems likely that H was also written in this monastery, presumably on coin-
mission from outside. Two lines in H which do not belong to the original manu-
script were written by one of tlie two scribes of Flateyjarbok (Flb.), which suggests
that Jon Håkonarson of ViQidalstunga, for whom Flb. was written, also was the
owner of H. This could explain why Flb. omits precisely those kings’ sagas which
are included in H.
The only other information which we possess regarding the history of H prior
to the seventeenth century is that Arngrimur Jonsson Iterdi consulted the manu-
script while writing his Supplementum Historiae Norvegiae at Holar in the years
1595-97. According to data collected by Arni Magnusson, H belonged in the 1660’s
to a family in Dalasysla but was passed secretly from farm to farm in the Borgar-
fjordur district — a circumstanee which earned it the nickname of Hulda, ‘the
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