Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.12.1960, Qupperneq 114

114
INLEDNING
letters / and p are of interest for the dating of the ms (see pp. 37 f.
and pp. 82 ff.). It may be mentioned that in the section on ortho-
graphy and phonology the author has found a clear tendency to
both vowel-harmony and vowel-balance in the distribution of final
unstressed e and i (pp. 64 ff.), phenomena well-known from Norway
and Sweden, but hardly ever met with in Icelandic.
On pp. 79—81 an account is given of what the verses in the ms
indicate about the age of the version in 556, and on pp. 82—86 the
ms is dated on the basis of both palæographical and phonological
criteria. The author comes to the conclusion that the ms was
written c. 1475 or during the last quarter of the century.
On pp. 89 f the author deals briefly with the history of 564. Its
7 leaves are the remaining fragments of Vatnshyrna, an anthology
supposed to have been written for Jón Hákonarson of Víðidalstunga
in the period c. 1400. The fragment of Harð. is on f. 7, the greater
part of which contains the beginning of the saga. Here the author
has been content in the main to report what has previously been
put forward about the history of the ms, on the ground that a
thorough treatment of this ms ought to take in all the fragments
of it, and that this is a piece of work which ought to be done se-
parately.
Thefinal section, pp. 95—105, treats of the question of the age of
the saga, the possible author of it (Styrmir hinn fróði, died 1245),
the relation between the versions in 556 and 564, which differ
markedly from each other, and the literary motifs in the complete
version. The author sums up the problems and reports the different
points of view of certain scholars (Finnur Jónsson, Vera Lachmann,
Sigurður Nordal, Einar Ólafur Sveinsson, etc.), especially with
regard to the relation between the versions. The author points out
however that if the ms did belong to Jón Sigmundsson, which he
declares possible, then it is probable that the version in 556 was
produced in the milieu in which Flateyjarbók and Vatnshyrna were
written. Eor Jón Sigmundsson may have been related to Jón
Hákonarson, and in any case his ancestors had close connections