Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Side 140
98*
INTRODUCTION
n. 20; Már Jónsson, 66-67), and again while in Iceland 1702-12 (cf.
e.g. Private Brevveksling, 455, 94; EIM II, 14; Stefán Karlsson, Opus-
cula IV, 271; Hallfreðar saga, lxvii-lxviii). He esteemed Eyjólf’s accu-
racy (cf. the slip with AM 399 4to, printed Levned II, 161; Ólafur
Halldórsson, Sögur úr Skarðsbók, 16).
The precise date of Eyjólfur Bjömsson’s transcript is uncertain. His
exemplar, S2, was on loan in Copenhagen when Ami Magnússon made
his own transcript of Jóns saga late in 1687 or in 1688, but the codex
was apparently retumed to Iceland before Bartholin’s death in 1690. It
stayed there till 1699. Eyjólfur probably copied it before he left Copen-
hagen, though possibly on Ami Magnússon’s behalf when back in Ice-
land in the 1690s. The only other text that Ami Magnússon had tran-
scribed from AM 234 fol. was Augustinus saga in the unfinished copy,
also by Eyjólfur, in AM 648 4to. It seems unlikely that Ámi Magnússon
would want such copies, virtual facsimiles, after the codex itself came
permanently into his hands in 1699, and less likely still that he ever
took 234 to Iceland with him. There he had Jóns saga with him in the
handier paper volumes, 391 and 392 (see pp. 102*-06*, 212*-17*).52
On a loose slip at the beginning of 393 is a list of words abstracted
from the S2 Jóns saga text, some with Latin glosses (cf. Lands-
bókasafn fslands: Árbók 1953-54, 140-41); they are in Árni Magnús-
son’s hand. The page-references given show that the slip was trans-
ferred from 391, evidently before this was left with sr. Jón Halldórs-
52 In his 1730 catalogue in AM 456 fol. Jón Ólafsson identified the writer of 393 and
648 as Magnús Einarsson (IÆ III, 415; Opuscula VIII, 53, with refs.), but Árni
Magnússon’s attribution of the former to Eyjólfur Björnsson is unequivocal, and there
can be no doubt but that Eiríkur Jónsson, in his notes added to Jón Sigurðsson's cata-
logue in AM 394 fol., was right to ascribe 648 to him as well. It is true that both Eyjólf-
ur and Magnús were skilful imitators of medieval book-hands - cf. their respective ef-
forts in AM 633 (on which cf. Private Brevveksling, 176) and 634-635 4to - and that
without evidence from Árni Magnússon himself we might be hard put to it to decide
which of them was responsible for any given copy, but no distinction can be observed
between the transcripts in 393 and 648, and the fact that Augustinus saga follows im-
mediately after Jóns saga in 234 argues for single workmanship. That Eyjólfur should
move straight on to make these transcripts in 1688 or ’89 is understandable; thatÁrni
Magnússon should have waited till Magnús arrived in Copenhagen in 1715 to commis-
sion the Augustinus saga copy from him is not. The attribution of 648 to Magnús is
repeated in AMKat. II, 53 and accepted by Már Jónsson, Árni Magnússon, 291, but
should be altered in favour of Eyjólfur.