Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.2005, Page 15
Observations on Some Manuscripts of Egils saga
5
dated to the middle of the fourteenth century. Leaves from it
have been lost in two places, the first lacuna being of two leaves
(EgEA I, ch. 7,1 -11,14) and the second probably of six leaves rather
than seven (ch. 70,9-82,11). The end of the saga (from ch. 85,7) is
also missing; it seems most probable that the conclusion was never
written in this book. The text in W is characterised by being consis-
tently shortened (see esp. EgFJ, introduction pp. xx ff.) and is often
in a rather poor State. The omissions are much more extensive than
those in M, but on the other hånd it is obvious that W not infre-
quently has older readings that have disappeared in M.
The abbreviation of the saga text is for the most part not the
work of the scribe who wrote W but of earlier origin, as can be
seen from other fragments in AM 162 fol. exhibiting a text simi-
lar to W but sometimes rather more authentic:
(3 (from the middle of the fourteenth century; in the same hånd as
Codex Wormianus).
y (probably from the late thirteenth century).
8 (from ca. 1300; it is very doubtful whether this fragment is in
the same hånd as Morkinskinna, as Finnur Jonsson supposed).
£ (from the late thirteenth century, printed in extenso in EgFJ, pp.
323-34; the transcription calls for extensive corrections, espe-
cially with regard to the first and last leaves).
i (from the fifteenth century; see § 7 below).
The beginning of the saga is also in a vellum codex in the Royal Libra-
ry, Stockholm, [I si. \ Per g. 4:o nr 7, from the early fourteenth century.
Here the text is related to that of W but generally superior to the latter.1
In what follows the designation B-redaction means the text as found
in the group of manuscripts to which W and the above-listed fragments
belong.
(4) Ketilsbækur, K [the principal representative(s) of the C-
redaction], The Rev. Ketill Jorundsson, parson of Hvammur
[Dalasysla] (d. 1670), copied the whole saga twice in the manu-
scripts AM 453 4to and 462 4to. It was suggested long ago that
[The fragments -y, 8, £, and Sth. 7 are edited in this volume, pp. 51-182, 209-27 below.]