Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.10.1979, Side 177

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The faet that Ivents saga came after Bevers saga in O is important
for the status of the Mirmants saga text which was otherwise thought
to occupy this space23. Godel, for example, allotted fols. 80-86 (pp.
159/60-171/72) to Mirmants saga (GodOS, 373). Some attempt
must therefore be made to estimate the length of Ivents saga in O. In
order to do this we will again need to investigate the ratio of O pages
to S46 pages.
In calculations involving Ivents saga we are hampered by the faet
that none of the citations has a line reference to O. Outside limits for
the ratio of O to S46 pages in the case of Ivents saga can, however, be
established.
If we compare the citations in F.d.9 with the corresponding occur-
rences of the same word in S46 we can see that the division between
0159 and 0160 must correspond to a point in S46 between 15r.24
(the last citation for 0159, item 6) and 15r.30 (the first citation for
0160, item 7). We will arbitrarily make this point 15r.27. Ivents saga
in S46 begins halfway down 2r. and ends halfway down 39v., giving a
total of 75 written pages. There are 34 lines on each fully-written page.
1. Item 2, Munni laug (0157), is identified in its first occurrence in
S46 on 3v.21 and is 23,2 pages from 15r.27. If it was at the very bot-
tom of 0157, 2 pages in O, 158-59, would be the equivalent of 23,2
pages in S46. 1 0 page therefore = [23,2:2=] 11,6 pages in S46.
2. Item 1, Rutz horn (0157, S46 3r. 13-14), is 24,4 pages from
15r.27 in S46. If it was at the very top of 0157, 3 pages in O, 157-59,
would be the equivalent of 24,4 pages in S 46. 1 O page therefore =
[24,4:3=] 8,1 pages in S46.
The average of these two results is a ratio of 1:9,924, which
compares favourably with the average result for the first two-fifths of
23 A study of the S47 text of Mirmants saga will appear in connection with
Desmond Slay’s fortheoming edition of the saga in Editiones Amamagnæanæ.
24 According to this average ratio for Ivents saga its text must have begun on 0156,4,
i.e. f of the way down p. 157. On the basis of this figure we can work out a ratio for
O pages to S46 pages for the | of Bevers saga after F.d.9’s item 7, Palmara. Item 7
is 50,6 pages from the end of the text in S46 and 3,6 pages from p. 156,4, the
hypothetical end of the saga in O. 1 O page therefore = [50,6:3,6=] 14,0 pages in S46.
This is a considerably higher figure than the average ratio for the first § of the saga,
1:10,8, and could suggest that JV has lengthened the text when copying the saga into
S46. This possibility cannot be ruled out, cf. n. 17 above, but another possible
explanation for the discrepancy between the two ratios for Bevers saga is that there was
more script per page at the end of the text in O than at the beginning.