Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Page 137
THE S RECENSION
95*
gin from the forms which show <lb) for // (see VIII 9 (ii) above).
These must be inherited and, while they may suggest that the exem-
plar was written by a man from the north or north-west of Iceland,
they will not decide the region in which 235 itself originated.47
We are left with a few items where Hand C differs more decisively
from Hand A: frequent <dh), <gh> and <th> spellings, gen. ‘fédrs vars’,
pron. ‘hun’, prep. ‘ur’, ‘ed’ as a conj. and relative, the weak declined
article not used with a demonstrative. Of these, <gh) and <th> spellings
came in early in the fourteenth century and are common in charters
from its last quarter; <dh) is rare.48 Gen. feðr is a known form, and .v
was presumably added on analogy with ‘fqðurs’.49 The forms ‘hun’
pron. and ‘ur’ prep. existed side by side with ‘hon’ and ‘or’ in the
fourteenth century and, as we know, became gradually standardised.50
These factors, along with rel. ‘ed’ and the weak declined article
usage,51 would combine to confirm c. 1400 as the most appropriate date
for the completion of AM 235 fol. In that case Hand A was a man of
advanced age, perhaps writing forty or more years after his schooling,
just as I am doing now.
The relations of the S recension witnesses.
Only limited comparison between the S recension texts is possible. S3
can be compared with S2 and S4 from 1/61 to 4/7, S4 with S2 from 1/1
to 7/79. No close relations can be established between them.
In considering variants in the S recension manuscripts account must
be taken, where appropriate, of the evidence of the L and H texts. A
point to bear in mind, however, is that much of the L recension repre-
sents a revision of a text very close to that preserved in the H manu-
47 Bandle, 125, with refs. In the reading at 33ra32-33 the scribe appears to have first
written (f) which he then altered to (b). One would naturally infer that ‘-skelfir’ refle-
cted his native pronunciation. On the other hand, the few spellings with (lp) for (lf>
might point in the same northerly direction - but parallels are hard to find.
48 IO, nr 66, Möðruvellir, Hörgárdalur, 1385, line 2 ‘gerandhe’, line 26 ‘þusundh’, are
the only exx. I have noted in charters written between 1377 and 1410.
49 In fsl. orðmyndir, 30, Björn K. Þórólfsson says, “Á 14. öld finst skrifað fpðurs, en
aðeins þegar orð er byrjar á .v fer næst á eftir.”
50 fsl. orðmyndir, 43, 73.
51 On these see Bandle, 361 and n. 5 there, 355-56.