Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.10.1979, Page 179
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With the additional “i” Ivents saga would therefore end between:
[p. 156,7+6,1=] p. 162,8, i.e. f of the way down p. 163, and [p.
155,8+8,8=] p. 164,6, i.e. f of the way down p. 165, while the
result based on the average is [156,4+7,0=] p. 163,4, i.e. f of the
way down p. 164.
We can therefore come no closer to the truth than to say that Ivents
saga ended and the Mirmants saga text presumably began at a point
in O between f of the way down p. 162 (the lowest figure for “f”
of the saga) and f of the way down p. 165 (the highest figure for
“f” of the saga)25. It is reasonable, however, to pay most attention
to the middle figures based on the ratio for Ivents saga, adjusted by the
average ratio for Bevers saga. According to these, chapter 13 in Ivents
saga ended at the very bottom of p. 162, i.e. fol. 81v., and the bottom
of a verso side is the most natural point for a break in any text. The
end of the saga if it was complete feli, according to the figure based on
the average ratio, § of the way down p. 164. This would leave only
1 | pages before p. 166 where there is a citation from Partalopa
saga in F.d.9 (see p. 150 above). One thing at least is clear: already in
the mid-seventeenth century, when O was excerpted by the Swedish
lexicographers, its text of Mirmants saga, which occupies 201 pages in
S 47, must have been seriously defective.
III. Er ex saga.
It is no surprise that either Er ex saga or Ivents saga should be
displaced from the position previously allotted to them before Bevers
saga in O since it is impossible that there was ever space enough for
both26. Godel placed Rémundar saga on fols. 66-7 127 and Er ex saga
and Ivents saga on 72-74 and 74-76 respectively (GodOS, 372-73).
25 There is a quotation from 0165 in Verelius’s Index containing the name Myrman
in a distinctive sentence; much the same sentence is found in S47, near the end of the
saga (inf. Desmond Slay).
26 The faet that the sagas are bound in the order Ivents saga, Erex saga, Bevers saga
in S46 is not significant. Erex and Bevers both begin on the first page of a new gathering,
and it is clear that the sagas are not necessarily bound in the order in which they were
written. At the end of Fertrams saga, item 4, there is the date November 17, 1690, and
after Elis saga, which is the last in the ms., there is the date July 23, 1690.
27 It is assigned to fols. 64v.-71 in Sven Gren Broberg ed., Rémundar saga
keisarasonar, STUAGNL XXXVIII (København, 1909-12), vi.