Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1979, Blaðsíða 138
124
He gives no examples and I have been unable to find any; but later he
notes:
... i isl. avskr. AM 655 X, 4 av norsk forelegg av Mauritius saga biir
skrevet p for / i ord som ep, nopn...1
It is possible that the examples which he has in mind are the same in
each case. In any event, at least one of the scribes who contributed to the
MS., namely D. was perfectly familiar with insular v since he wrote it
himself; and there is no particular reason to believe that Icelandic scribes
would confuse insular J with p, since they used insular /.
Yet it is true that the MS. is not without its share of “Norwegianisms".
I have observed the similarity of B and D and of A and C. but I have not
remarked the one feature which C and D have in common, namely, their
manifestation of Norwegian conventions. Both follow the Norwegian.
originally insular. pattern for /> and d distribution more closely than do A
and B. In addition, D uses the insular v and omits h before / in the one
occurrence of this sequence in 11. 24-25. And C uses the æ graph with
unusual frequency also in the spelling of the diphthong ei. It is possible
that these Norwegian features appear in the passages assigned to hånds
C and D as a result of their more careful copying of a Norwegian
original. But if such were the case, one would expect them to pick up the
same Norwegianisms and one would be surprised to find no accidental
examples in hånds A and B. In faet, whatever the original of this copy
was, the major differences between its hånds must finally be explained in
terms of particular orthographies of its individual scribes. And it seems
most satisfactory to account for the Norwegian features of hånds C and
D on the basis of their use of Norwegian-derived scribal conventions.
This does not prove that source was not Norwegian, always a strong
possibility in a text of this kind, but it does mean that the MS. itself offers
little evidence towards such a conclusion.
The date of the MS. is usually given as the third quarter of the
thirteenth century, and there seems to be no reason to doubt this. The
preservation of the spirant graphs in the cluster Id, e.g. dvalde 2v20 and
scil^e 2v5, suggests a date before 1300 and use of the medio-passive z
indicates a date after 1250, while the evidence of the palatal rule in B and
C, and its absence in A point to the third quarter of the century. This
1 ibid. p. 72.