Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Page 95
THE S RECENSION
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(x) Olafvr (Olafur 78v) Biorns son
The only entry of literary interest is in a seventeenth-century hand
at the top of fol. 38v:
Synt var bællt fra sætu mier
sorgar vindunn/; modi
af huga verd eg alldreig þier
afrecks sumninn gode.29
The individuals named on fol. lr cannot be traced, though it may be
noted that the nearest Harri of whose existence we are aware - and not
very near - was bóndi at Miðhóp (Húnavatnssýsla) in the 1240s (Lind,
Dopnamn, 491). Olafur Lárusson found it “a tempting conjecture” to
identify Jón Jónsson in (i) above as Jón lögmaður Jónsson (1536-
1606; IÆ III, 168-69), the man responsible for the first printed edition
of Jónsbók, issued from Bishop Guðbrand’s press at Hólar.30 Jón lög-
maður was doubtless brought up with his father, Jón lögréttumaður
Magnússon, at Svalbarð. It does not seem possible, however, to bring
the other names in the codex into the orbit of that family and, as things
stand, no convincing connections can be made between them.31 It may
well be that AM 169 4to was in North Iceland in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, but where it was first written remains an un-
solved problem.32
29 Cited with some spelling mistakes, and with reference to p. 66 for p. 76 in the codex,
by Jón Þorkelsson, Om Digtningen, 119 (n. 1 continued from 118).
30 Lögbók íslendinga. Jónsbók 1578 (Monumenta typographica Islandica III, 1934),
54 n.
31 Speculation, undoubtedly hazardous, might bring a couple of other families, though
from the same neighbourhood, into consideration. A Jón lögréttumaður Þorláksson
(died after 1551) farmed somewhere in Vaðlaþing from c. 1525. His daughter Guðrún
married a Jón Jónsson (their son was sr. Jón, parson of Reykjadalur in south Iceland
1591-1622). He also had a son, Árni lögréttumaður (c. 1535-92), and probably another
named Ivar. Ivar was the father of Jón, father of Einar bóndi at Melgerði (Eyjafjörður).
The names Árni Einarsson and Einar alone might, on the other hand, suggest members
of the family of the well-known Ámi Dalskeggur Einarsson (died 1434) of Djúpidalur
in Eyjafjörður. His son, Einar sýslumaður in Þingeyjarsýsla (died 1471), had a son
named Ámi, bóndi in Djúpidalur c. 1500. This unhelpful information is culled from
Smæ., Lögréttumannatal, ÍÆ, Prestatal and Isl. ættstuðlar.
32 Some generic similarity may be seen between Hand I of 169 and the hands of AM 75
a fol., Oláfs saga helga (c. 1300; especially the script as it appears towards the end of