Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.2007, Page 114

84
4 CURRENT STATE OF RESEARCH
observations and conclusions to criticism, including the doubtful Iden-
tification of the scribal hånds (Louis-Jensen 1977:16-17, 27)-
In 1975 King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden went on a State visit to Ice-
land, taking with him the Kringla leaf as a gift. It has now taken its place
in the manuscript collection in the National and University Library
and has the shelf-mark Lbs. fragm. 82. In connection with this event
Stefan Karlsson published an article in Arbok Landsbokasafns where he
described the leaf and shed more light on the history of the manuscript.
Most of the article is a recapitulation of familiar material but there are
also some new ideas. Even though Stefan Karlsson had to agree with
Jakob Benediktsson that Kringla scarcely served as exemplar for Lau-
rents Hanssøn’s saga translation, he supported Finnur Jonsson’s Iden-
tification of Laurents Hanssøn’s hånd in the marginal annotations on
the leaf of Kringla (Stefan Karlsson 1977: 16—17). He also subscribed
to the view that the scribe of Kringla is identical with the main hånd
(A) in Stadarhélsbok (AM 334 fol), and was able to add that this hånd
can also be found in GKS 1157 fol, Cod. Reg. of Gragds (hånd B). He
emphasised that the same person, then, took part in writing two ver-
sions of Gragds and conjectured that the former was written before
Iceland came under Norwegian rule, and the latter afterwards.
Stefan Karlsson also painstakingly examined the dating of Kringla
(cf. Storm’s dating, above pp. 80—81). Like Finnur Jonsson he made
use of the information in Skdldatal and the faet that Sturla fiordar-
son is not mentioned among Håkon Håkonarson’s skalds. But Stefan
Karlsson argued that Sturla is unlikely to have composed poetry about
Håkon before the spring of 1263. He thought that Kringla was written
in one stretch by an experienced scribe and considered it most likely
that this happened after Sturla had composed poetry about Håkon, but
before it became known that he had composed a poem about Magnus
Håkonarson, which also happened in 1263. The probable dating would
then be 1263/64 (pp. 18-19).
It is scarcely possible to unveil the identity of the Kringla scribe with