Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Síða 138
96*
INTRODUCTION
scripts, and where they agree they may have the weight of only a sin-
gle witness.
As demonstrated earlier, S2 is a copy of S1, in general carefully
made but with a few misspellings, omissions, occasional changes of
form and minor additions; see the textual notes to 29/14-45/6, 63/31-
65/22.
Where comparison with S3 and S4 is possible, one or other of these
can make good omission in S2: see e.g. 1/49 ‘Jons byskvps’; 2/5 ‘ox’.
In other cases the evidence of L and H goes to confirm the readings of
S3 and S4 against S2 and points to omission in the latter: see e.g. 2/14
‘fæddi’, where S34LH all add adv. ‘upp’; 2/20 ‘virða’, where all others
add acc. ‘hann’; 3/11 ‘færa’, where all others add dat. ‘mer’. At 6/12 S2
has misspelt ‘iMagala borg’, where S4 has the better reading ‘j Magda
borg’; cf. L ‘i Megeða borg’, H ‘J Magada borg’.
53 offers numerous distinctive readings unsupported by any other
text, e.g. (S2 readings first, S3 second): 1/63 segia þer] sia; 1/66 birtiz]
birtz hefir; 2/3 afliðinn] or; 2/13-14 Gizvr var lærðr. i Herfvrðv aSax-
landi] -f . See further instances cited in textual notes to 2/9-10, 2/16,
20-21, 2/21, 2/22, 2/23-24, 2/33, 2/35, 2/57, 3/3.
54 is an abridging text and its many omissions are readily discerned
from the textual notes. Individual variants, where S2 and S3 are both
available for comparison, are (S23 readings first, S4 second): 1/63 yfvir
bragði] bragdi; 2/10 hofvt kenni menn] kennimenn godir; 2/11
Norðlendinga byskvp] Hola byskup; 2/40 raddaðr hverivm manne
betR] radhollr huerium manni.
Cases where a reading in S4 is supported against S2 and S3 by the L
and H recensions are few and trivial (S23 first, S4LH second): 2/9
siðan] + ; 2/13 byskvp] +; 2/33 sniallaztR] + ok.
Coincidence of omission in S3 and S4 is unsafe to build on and is
here disregarded; the first is the work of a not very careful scribe, the
second that of an editor who willingly abbreviates. The only positive
instance where S3 and S4 agree against S2 and LH seems to be at 2/1,
where S3 and S4 do not have a chapter break and begin ‘þa er þav faðir
ok moðir Jons’; cf. S2 ‘Þa er faðir Ions ok moðir’, LH ‘Þa er fadir hans
ok moðir’. It may well be that S3 and S4 here have a more original
reading but it seems likely that the near agreement of the other texts is
merely adventitious.
Instances where S2 and S4 agree against the combined evidence of