Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Side 163
THE S RECENSION
121*
Mitchell, Fund og Forskning 5-6, 40-42; Anna Agnarsdóttir, Ný saga
6, 28-41, esp. 30, 33. On his return to the United Kingdom Johnstone
was appointed to a living in Ireland. In 1800, two years after his death,
his Icelandic manuscripts, doubtless including the copy of Jóns saga
in 1028, were bought for the Library of Trinity College (Slay, Mír-
manns saga, xxix); the rest of his library is said to have been auctioned
in 1810 (Waterhouse, 441-42 and 442, n. 1).
TCD 1028 is a bound manuscript of 32 quarto leaves, now num-
bered 1-30 in pencil on the recto leaves with the last two folios blank.
It contains only ‘Saga Iöns Höla Biskups’, written in a clear book-
hand of about the mid-eighteenth century. The identity of the copyist
and the ultimate provenance of the copy are unknown. It seems virtu-
ally certain, on the other hand, that the manuscript previously be-
longed to F. C. Sevel (1723-78) and appeared as item nr 668, ‘Saga
Jons Hóla Biskups’ in quarto, in the catalogue, Bibliothecæ Sevelianæ
... Pars Tertia, prepared for an auction beginning on 21 January 1781;
see Jón Helgason, Opuscula IV, 118, nr 58. The title of Sevel’s copy of
Jóns saga coincides only with that of TCD 1028 and of the related
copy in Lbs. 839 4to (see above), and the date of the auction coincides
neatly with Johnstone’s known stay in Copenhagen. Jón Helgason
identified five other manuscripts in Sevel’s list (Opuscula, IV, 111-12,
118, 119, nrs 10, 11, 12, 60, 71) with items now in Trinity College,
presumably all snapped up by Johnstone, along with the Jóns saga
copy, in January 1781.
C2 resembles C' in retaining some bracketed words derived from
391, but it has no marginal dates. Each has individual variants which
show that neither is derived from the other, but since the two also
share errors, the status of their exemplar as an intermediate copy be-
tween them and 391 is assured. In 391 at S 6/12 ‘Magdala’ has the ‘d’
cancelled by Árni Magnússon; C1 and C2 have the misread ‘Magdla’.
At S 24/8 391 reads ‘einnsamtt’ (as one word); C1 and C2 read ‘ein-
samall’. At S 45/1 Árni Magnússon inserted ‘Dalksson’ above the line
(the name now almost all sheared off by trimming) after ‘BraNdr’; in
C' and C2 this appears as ‘Dafkson’ (sic). Variants found only in C1 are
e.g. (S2 readings first); 1/40 hendr] hendurnar; 2/31 betz þottv] þeim
þottu betz; 2/51 tiðenda] til tidinda; 3/10 dvalizt hafva] hafva dvalizt;
8/96-97 hverivm manni mvndi] mundi hverium manni; 17/4-5 tæki
byskvps vigslv] -r ; 18/14-15 fyrir krossinn ok skekltv] 4-; 24/14 gvð]