Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Qupperneq 43
THE S RECENSION
5*
Karlsson and came to a different conclusion (Den lærde stil, 27-35;
Maal og Minne 1969, 41-45). According to him, the scribe was Nor-
wegian and his text offers an unusually complex case of “sprákbland-
ing”. I can add little to their discussion of details, and there are un-
solved problems which need far wider study - use of the barred (fi)
ligature, for example, and the distribution of (i). A few notes follow.
(1) (0) for e, characteristic of 221, especially in forms of taka, oc-
curs sporadically in more sources than those noted by Stefán Karlsson:
see AM 645 4to, 40/6, 52/1; Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar af Oddr, 211/22;
and ‘tpkr’, ‘g0tr’ cited in Mork., v.
(2) Stefán Karlsson does not note ‘muNt þv’ 4ra6 (here S 63/34-35),
beside usual forms in ‘man(-)’, and ‘hrellingv’ lvb2 (33/15). The
latter makes the instances of (hr) spellings three against nine in (r) (in
six different words); add also ‘hneigir’ lva27 (33/8).
(3) Accents are comparatively frequent and more or less evenly dis-
tributed (about 10 percent of long vowels, including æ, are marked,
and about 15 percent of the diphthongs au, ei and jó). Accents appear
over etymologically short vowels in ‘háls’, ‘lángt’, ‘géngr’, ‘fóng’,
‘saúng’ (pret. of syngja), and in ‘brót’ (adv. braut, brot). Lengthening
before Is is probable in ‘háls’; the four exx. before ng suggest some
stage in the qualitative change a short vowel before ng was to undergo.
Both the accent use and these vowel changes are easier to relate to Ice-
landic developments but neither is a definitive pointer (cf. EIM VII,
50; Alfred Jakobsen, Maal og Minne 1977, 89-102).
(4) Tveitane might have found a probable norwegianism in the form
Ticham-’ lra20 (29/26), 5rb32, 5val, 5vb30 (Hms. I, 150/31, 34,
152/10): it can be paralleled in Ordforrádet but not in Ordförrádet; cf.
e.g. Hauksbók, lvi-lviii; MI 5, xi.
(5) Tveitane is doubtless right in claiming that ‘sútt’ was, or started
as, a Norwegian form, but he must be mistaken in saying that ‘bar-
dagi’ in ‘þui batnaði (eigi) skiott at þat muNdi vera réttr bardagi við
Þorgeir’ (44/26-27) is a specific norwegianism. Its sense is clearly
guðs bardagi (this phrase is found in the parallel passage, H 84/30-
31), a commonplace for sickness rightly understood and piously ac-
cepted (cf. Heb. 12. 4-11), found in Hungrvaka and obviously as fa-
miliar in Iceland as anywhere else (see Fritzner, s.v., and cf. further
passages in Leifar, 46/13-26, 54/7-9, 72/13-17, 133/22-32; Hms. I,
600/4, II, 182/10; Post., 270/4-5, 270/11-271/4).