Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Blaðsíða 153
THE S RECENSION
111*
of fol. 39v, ‘Frá Jóni Biskupi Enumm Helga’ begins a new four-leaf
quire, fols. 40-43, with a leaf of the same paper stuck in to make fol.
44. The abridged text from Jóns saga ends fol. 44v, at S 36/12, ‘þess-
umm Atburdumm Jafnsamann (Hier læt eg nú staðar nema)’. New text
continues below a line drawn across that page and i.a. introduces the
following item 3, beginning on fol. 45r, extracts from vols. I and IV of
Bishop Finnur Jónsson’s Historia ecclesiastica. Item 4, the last bound
up in the book, ‘Umm Eusebius’, begins on the third page of a bifoli-
um, with the preceding two pages blank except for ‘1842’ in the top
right-hand corner of the first of them, and on fol. 104r Daði gives the
date ‘28da October MDCCCXLIII’. The precise date of his Jóns saga
extracts is thus not ascertainable, but they were doubtless made in the
1840s. Before settling in Akureyri c. 1850, Daði lived at Gautsdalur
(Austur-Húnavatnssýsla) 1840-45/46, and then in various places in
Skagafjörður: “Af bréfum til Daða næstu árin, 1846-49, má sjá, að
hann hefir verið víða (Húsabökkum, Dæli í Sæmundarhlíð, Mælifelli,
Hólum, Nýjabæ, Fjalli í Kolbeinsdal)” (Finnur Sigmundsson, Menn
og minjar II, 10). Given the dates of items 1 and 4 in 2243, we may
presume they were written in Gautsdalur. It seems probable that the
abridgment of Jóns saga and the following extracts from Bishop
Finnur should be associated with the same place, but it cannot be veri-
fied. In any case, Daði knew many people and might have borrowed
from all over.
Daði abridges but much of his brief text is fairly close transcript and
provides sufficient evidence of its derivation. It shares the readings
peculiar to B2 and B3 at e.g. S 1/6-7, 7/82, 8/44, along with others not
cited, but only B2 could have occasioned the agreement in Daði’s text
with the variants quoted above at S 1/53 (‘hvad olli’ in 2243), 2/5 and
2/30. 1442 was at Espihóll in Eyjafjörður when Daði wrote; it may
have been the source he followed. Readings from 2243 are not cited in
the discussion of the Group B relations on pp. 117*-19*. Typical exx.
of compression in 2243 are e.g. (S2 readings first): 1/4 þat var - fædr]
þa fæddist Jon biskup helgi; 1/25-26 hvilikR - Ion byskvp] hver madur
Jon mundi verda; 1/29 ok þat - verið] og þokti sannnefni; 4/1-8 Ejgi -
fostRÍarðar] Þad er og frasagnarverdt ad Jon fieck hingad til lands med
sier Sæmund enn froda, og er þad annarstadar ritad; 8/152-54 ok af
honvm - heimkynna] og foru allir fagnandi fra hans fundi; 8/163-64
þat var - hinvm yngrvm] þeir eldri kienndu þeim yngri.