Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.2007, Page 322

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ReLATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TRANSCRIPTS
mier afskrifads unna {es s ur formålanum ifer Snorra Sturlu-
son, sem talar um Ara froda, og ad {ad sama qvam accurat-
issimé confererast meige med odru exemplarenu, soframt så
formåli i badum stendur. Item villdi eg giarnan få {ann heila
passage ur Snorra Sturlusine (hann stendr framarlega ibland
{eirra Svensku konga), er Skiolldunga Saga i nefnest.
(Kålund 1916: no. 63 [see translation on p. 216])
In his next letter, dated 3.4.1697, Arni repeats this request for the
passage about Skjgldunga saga, and here he specifies that he wants the
variants and, moreover, States exactly what his requirements are with
regard to accuracy:
Item {rann locum, er talar um Skiolldunga Sogu i vita Adils
kongs, og {)å {esse loca ur einu exemplarenu uppskrifud eru,
{aug somu vid hitt annad accurat ad lata conferera og varias
lectiones in margine vel supra lineas ad tilsetia. Eg bad hann oc
um minna vegna ur Flateyiarbok ad lata uppskrifa Noregs kon-
unga tal, er orti Sæmundr frodi, og {ad accurat, cum omnibus
abbreviaturis et erratis, si qvædam in sint.
(Kålund 1916: no. 65 [see translation on pp. 217—218])
The passage mentioning Skjgldunga saga is in Arni Magnusson’s hånd
in lefl. Though this transcript is not dated, the short text contains nei-
ther more nor less than what Arni asked for in the letters, and it seems
likely that it is based on a transcript he received as a result of this re-
quest and is thus only indirectly a transcript of Kringla. The same may
be true of the text of Ynglingatal in Kringla, which he also requested in
the first letter, and we cannot exclude the possibility that he received
the verses from Haleygjatal in the same way, even though we have no
extant letter in which Arni requests these. If Arni had transcribed the
texts himself, this would have had to happen when he visited Torfæus
in the autumn of 1689 or 1712, or after the vellums had been returned