Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2000, Side 344

CCCXLII
page, usually with 38 lines per column in the earlier part (gatherings 1-
15), but columns of 36, 37, and 39 lines also occur. In the later part there
are mostly 34 or 35 lines per column.
The text of OlTr is on ff. Iv-lllval4 in Bergsbók, after which follow
poems on ff. Illval6-118va (see p. CLXV), and finally the Saga of St
Olaf on ff. 119-210. The first two leaves in gathering 16, ff. 117-118, are
palimpsests. From the few original words that are still legible it is evident
that these leaves once contained the conclusion of Oláfs saga Tryggva-
sonar (corresponding in content to part of chapter 281-the end), but in a
shorter form and quite different style. From this and from differences of
scribal practice between the first and second halves of the manuscript it
appears that gatherings containing an unknown text of Oláfs saga Tryggva-
sonar have been removed from the front of the book, the first two leaves
of gathering 16 scraped clean, and substitute gatherings with the extant
OlTr written and placed in front of the older part, after which poems have
been written on the left-over leaves of the last new gathering and on the
two palimpsest leaves that remained vacant when the new first half and
the old second half of the book were assembled. Then the book was
illuminated (except for ff. 113v-118, which are without decoration), ini-
tial letters being coloured and chapter titles written in red. Bergsbók is
bound in wooden boards covered with pressed leather and the name
Peder Hansen is impressed on the front of the binding.
The bulk of Bergsbók is written in two hands, A and B, in addition to
which five other hands (C-G) are found in short passages scattered here
and there; of the latter C and G occur in ÓlTr, all the rest of which is the
work of A and B. Hands A and E recur in Perg. 4:o nr 6 (Stefán Karlsson
1967, 74-82) and Hand E in NKS 1824b 4to (Stefán Karlsson 1970d,
368-369). Such minor pieces of evidence as we have conceming the pro-
venance of these three manuscripts suggest that they originated at the
episcopal seat at Hólar in Hjaltadalur.
On the first page of Bergsbók there is a tax list from the Vestmanna-
eyjar that seems to date from the first half of the fifteenth century and was
probably compiled on behalf of the holder of the local fief, but nothing is
known of this man’s identity or whereabouts and the history of the
manuscript remains uncertain until the early sixteenth century, when it
apparently was in Bergen: the latest research (Jprgensen 1994, 178-181
and 185-193) shows that the lagmann Jon Simonsson made excerpts
from it that were afterwards used by Christiem Pedersen and Peder
Clausspn Friis (PCl). Known Norwegian owners of the book were Knud
Orm, who was a merchant in Oslo before the middle of the sixteenth cen-
tury, and after him Peder Hanssen Litle, who had it bound (probably in