Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Page 82
in the vellum is either a copyist’s careless transmission of the text of his
exemplar, or his poor judgment and lack of purpose in condensing a
longer version.
On the basis of evidence from the paper manuscript, H46, we can
postulate an original Ivens saga that transmitted the content of the
French romance at once more accurately and in greater detail. Both
vellums are corrupt and condensed redactions of the translation, as is the
paper manuscript. Nonetheless, despite extensive reduction in the seven-
teenth-century recension, the paper manuscript transmits material from
the translation that scribal editing has excised in the vellums. The interre-
lationship of the three manuscripts can be depicted as follows:
H6
(c. 1400)
Archetype (before 1400)
(15th cent.) (1690)
In addition to Ivens saga, the vellum Stockholm 6 fol. contains a prima-
ry text of Parcevals saga (with Valvens påttr), and from this manuscript
derive two seventeenth-century redactions in the paper manuscripts AM
181a fol. and AM 179 fol. The text of Parcevals saga in the Stockholm
manuscript - as also that in the paper derivatives - is defective. Between
leaves 45v and 46r of the vellum codex a leaf has disappeared (the pagina-
tion dates from a period when there already existed a lacuna). The text of
the missing leaf had corresponded to Perceval, vv. 2119-2307. Another
manuscript branch of Parcevals saga is represented by a vellum fragment
of one leaf that may antedate Stockholm 6 by as much as a half century.
The fragment, NKS 1794b 4to (Royal Library, Copenhagen), is dam-
aged: the lower half has been cut away, and each side of the leaf contains
18 lines of text. The first 10 Vz lines on the recto transmit text that would
correspond to the bottom of the verso of the leaf missing from Stockholm
6. The remaining text on the recto of the fragment corresponds to pp.
21:1-22:2 of the Kolbing edition; the verso parallels Kolbing, pp. 22:31-
24:2.
Discrepancies between the parallel vellum texts - that is, between the
68
j