Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Page 55
THE S RECENSION
17*
Guds son kallaR komid til myn sem kuydid vid ýdar Andar pýn og
synd/r Jafnann / særa menn kuinnur Alldradir og Bórn ýdur vil eg
vera nadargeam og Alla Endurnæra.
This is the beginning of a hymn first found in Ein ny Psalma Bok
(1589), clxxij-clxxiij; see Upptök sálma, 166 (nr 235).
(xi) Fol. 66va, in the margin beside lines 30-34 in a cursive hand:
‘Hinn heylæge Augustinus seiger’ (what follows has been erased); and
beside lines 38-42 in the same hand: ‘Vier lofumm / þan/t Gud / sem
leyst he/fur oss wr / vanda’ (printed Isl. fornkvæði IV, 6). The verbs
lofa and leysa are commonplace in pious verse; cf. e.g. Vísnabók
(1612), 300, where the given tune is ‘sem þad Fornkuæde Vier lofum
þann Gud sem leyst hefur oss og liet sig negla vppa Kross’; and p. 76,
something closer to the entry in 234, ‘Siglt hef eg opt og sied hef eg ei
til Landa / herrann Jesus hefur mig leyst wr vanda’ (cf. Kvæði og
dansleikir II, 264). Jón Samsonarson (Kvæði og dansleikir II, 277)
cites a refrain from AM 152 8vo: ‘Ymist gengur með eða mót, / margt
vill [bera] til handa. / Herrann Jesús hjálpar bezt úr vanda’. As Jón has
pointed out to me, the refrain of Kvæði af Margrétu og Eilíf comes
closest to the marginal entry in 234: ‘ver lofum þann gud sem leýst
hefur allan vanda’ (ísl. fornkvæði I, 98-105; V, 63-69). This ballad is
thought to have come from the Faroes to Iceland some time before the
Reformation (Vésteinn Ólason, The traditional ballads of Iceland, 174-
79; cf. CCF nr 77, where different refrains are naturally found). As a
text, however, it is in the same case as other Icelandic “ballads” in that
it cannot be traced farther back than to a lost manuscript probably
written by Gissur Sveinsson some time before 1665, though not neces-
sarily long before; cf. Kvæðabók séra Gissurar Sveinssonar, B, 45-54;
ísl. fomkvæði I, xxxvii. Given the early hymn lines just cited and the
rarity of devout refrains in Icelandic fornkvæði, it may be reasonably
supposed that the words in Kvæði af Margrétu og Eilíf were borrowed
or adapted from a religious lyric, so far unidentified, which had a
verse-line or refrain resembling the entry in 234. (The loan in the
Kvæði afMargrétu has a sort of crass propriety - the vandi is rape and
unwitting incest, and it is leystur when all the principals die.)