Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.2005, Blaðsíða 42
32
Jon Helgason
I, ch. 81,63, where it parts company entirely with 463/560. The passage
that now commences in 458 has nothing in common with the B-redac-
tion. Not long after this it becomes possible to make a comparison with
fragment O, the third leaf of which begins at A (M) ch. 81,100 in EgEA
I [where the relevant part of i) is printed in parallel on pp. 160 ff.]; and
what emerges is that the passage bears a very close resemblance to the
oldest and most original fragment of the saga to have come down to us.
At one particular place the language is actually even older than in 11:
see EgEA I, loc. cit., 458, line 39-40 hefeg par til logd morg ord, where
d, line 150, has par til lagt.
This piece of text [from now on: 458(b2)] finishes at the end of EgEA
I, ch. 82, or perhaps a little earlier. Now there is a switch to W, which is
copied until the beginning of the scarcely legible f. 54v (ch. 84,29).
Then follows what has been designated 458(c), corresponding to A (M)
ch. 84,29-44 [EgEA I, pp. 175-76; the text of 458(c) is on pp. 174-75],
458(c) filis a mere 15-20 printed lines in EgFJ and is difficult to clas-
sify reliably because ff is no longer available for comparison. It is also
hard to explain the textual shift at this point in 458. Two possibilities
may be considered:
(1) 458(b2) is from a fragment that ended at EgEA I, ch. 82,38 (or
altematively 82,36). Here the copyist reverted to W until he
came to f. 54v. Not thinking that he could decipher this page,
he had recourse to another lost fragment; but the benefit was
not great, for that fragment only went as far as ch. 84,44.
(2) 458(b2) is from a fragment that reached all the way to EgEA
I, ch. 84,44, but because part of it [from the end of ch. 82]
was faded and hard to read the copyist chose to go over to W
for the time being. When W for its part became illegible, he
went back to the fragment until it ceased. In that case
458(b2), with its marked similarity to U, and 458(c) would
both be from the same source. If this conjecture is valid, the
passage about Iri and Steinarr at Einkunnir will surely have
been present in [the faded part of] the source fragment, as it
is in U; W lacks it, and the copyist of 458 would scarcely
have preferred the text of W at this point without some com-
pelling reason.