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might also observe that the endings in herjileganna and saurgreteleganna
resemble those of the Low German words which they translate,
yammerliken and elendichliken, and may have been influenced by them.23
Apart from the suffix -ligan(n)a there are a number of other features in
the AM 696 fragment that are also found in Oddur Gottskålksson’s New
Testament: the verb safna governing the accusative (ri, cp. Jon
Helgason, Målid, para. 169); the preposition til with the meaning “in”,
under the influence of the Low German tho (r2, cp. ibid., page 374); the
use of pat as a conjunction (r3.9, v8, cp. ibid., para. 260); pesse hinn same
(r3-4) and pat sama (rlO, cp. ibid., para. 217); the use of svo sem in
comparisons (r7, v7, cp. ibid., para. 266); the intrusive d in bradzt (rlO,
cp. ibid., para. 37); the use of så as a relative pronoun, af peim hun suo
mektug var uordinn (vi-2, cp. ibid., para. 231), and as the definite article
with nouns, peim Antiochio Theo (r5), saa konungurinn uidr sudrinu . . .
peim konunginum uidr nordrinu (v8-9, cp. ibid., para. 201); the use of ut af
for af (v7-8, cp. ibid., para. 309); the position of the adverb in og j burt
rak paa (v4, cp. ibid., para. 298); the repetition of the subject in hennar
sonur hann (r9, cp. ibid., para. 282); the redundant på in pat sama paa
bradzt henne (rlO) and suo sem pat fodr og modr mordingiunum paa til
heyrer (v7, cp. ibid., para. 287); and the accusative instead of the dative
in skamt eitt par epter (v5-6, cp. ibid., para. 167). But these features are
also found generally in Gudbrandsbiblia (although in two of the five
places cited by Jon Helgason as examples of the use of til meaning “in”
the Gudbr. has substituted i), and in our present State of knowledge about
these matters can not be used to isolate the style of Oddur.
The appearance of j gien (v5) is of possible interest: of the twelve
examples given in Westergård-Nielsen’s Låneordene,24 six occur in
translations by Oddur. On the other hånd, the prepositional form vidur
(v8) as opposed to vid is rare both in Oddur’s New Testament (Målid,
para. 158) and in Gudbrandsbiblia.25 Likewise, the spelling heilugum (r3)
does not conform to Oddur’s usage (Målid, page 68).
Perhaps the most striking linguistic peculiarity of the AM 696
23 Ole Widding and Hans Bekker-Nielsen, “En senmiddelalderlig legendesamling”, Maal og Minne,
1960, pp. 105-28, claim that the -ana ending in Stockholm perg. 3 folio is one of the forms that “peger
direkte på et nedertysk forlæg” (p. 110).
24 Låneordene i det 16. Århundredes trykte islandske Litteratur, Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana, VI
(Copenhagen, 1946), p. 166.
25 Bandle (see note 22), para. 296.