Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1996, Side 275
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Olafur Halldorsson 1974: Bosa rimur (Islenzkar miåaldan'mur III), ed. Olafur
Halldorsson, Reykjavfk.
Pall Eggert Olason 1915: “Folgin nofn i rimum”, Skimir 1915, s. 118-32, Reyk-
javlk.
RS = Rlmnasafn, ed. Finnur Jonsson, I, 1905-12, II, 1913-22 (STUAGNL),
København.
Visnabok 1612 = Ein Ny Wiisna Bok, Holar 1612; facsimileudg. København
1937 (Bishop Gudbrand’s Visnabok 1612, Monumenta Typographica Islan-
dica V).
Summary
The article treats two stanzas written in the margins of, respectively, the
recto of the fragment AM 921 4to, II, and fol. 46v of the manuscript
AM 713 4to. Both stanzas were written down in the 16th century.
The stanza in AM 921 4to (Bægt var mérfrd bli'dum hjorva runni) is
a complainte d’amour, addressed by a woman to a man, who has appar-
ently been separated from her by some third party (the stanza is defect-
ive and can only be partially restored). We know a number of Icelandic
poems in the same metre, most of them from the 17th and 18th centu-
ries.
The stanza in AM 713 4to is in the same hånd as that of the main text,
a well-known scribal hånd belonging to either one Ari Jonsson of the
Westfjords or one of his two sons, Tomas or Jon. The stanza, Ferdin
klokk med fleina hlokk, is a name-riddle of a type often found in rimur,
where the poet spells a name (his own or that of some other important
person) by means of rune-names (fé, ur, purs etc.). Instead of the rune-
names themselves, the rimur-poets used kennings or circumlocutions of
a type exemplified in the Icelandic rune poem, Prideilur. The name
hidden in the stanza is not quite certain, but most likely it is a woman’s
name, Bjorg, and, rather than being an original composition by the
scribe, the stanza gives the impression of having been taken down from
oral tradition.
Det Arnamagnæanske Institut
Københavns Universitet