Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.2007, Page 225

7-1 Jon Eggertsson group
195
same. The same can be said about the transcripts of letters in Arni’s
hånd in Torfæus’ copybook.123
What weighs most heavily against Arni having written 18(1) is that
the fraktur style there is difficult to identify with the samples of frakiur
we otherwise have in Arni’s hånd. In AM519 a 4to (519) we find a tran-
script of three passages, all difficult to read, in a younger hånd which
Jon Helgason (as note 122, above) identified as Arni Håkonarson’s. 529
is an Icelandic vellum from the last quarter of the thirteenth century
which contains Alexanders saga. The fragments of text in Arni’s hånd
are found on the last written page of the manuscript and on two in-
serted paper leaves. The style is Gothic fraktur, but is not quite the
same on the paper leaf as on the page of parchment. Jon Helgason
believed nonetheless that it was all written by Arni Håkonarson. The
fraktur style in the additions to 529 cannot be identified with the hand-
writing in i8(l)/^y(l). Although it is no doubt possible to find points
of similarity here, they are not significant, and the differences domi-
nate.124
There is particular reason to look more closely at the last man men-
tioned by Dal, EorSur Porkelsson Vfdalin. Though he is introduced
as the grandson of Arngrimur Jonsson the Learned, ‘the foremost
123 AM 282 fol, April 1683 — March 1686.
124 For example, the hånd on the last leaf of parchment in 529, fol. 37V, traces the limb
of the h straight down, /seldom continues below the base line but the foot has a
slight curve to the right, andjy is in many places dotted twice. In l8(l)/yy(l) the
limb of the b leans to the left below the base line, /mostly continues below it, and
y is for the most part unmarked but can be dotted once. We also findy with two
dots on the paper leaves in 519, and / has an upstroke which forms a small twig in
the middle of the stem, unlike the form in l8(l)/^y(l). On the paper leaves in 519
a typical cursive r is found, which begins and ends at the top and has two down-
strokes. The same type can occur towards the end of 18(1), but these still do not
look like the letter form in 529. The ascender of d on the slips of paper is looped
and is clearly different from the d form in l8(l)/jy(l). It is clear enough that this
cannot be the same hånd.