Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Page 202
160*
INTRODU CTION
suggest an established scriptorium, and the likelihood that this was
Helgafell remains strong. Persuasive facts in favour of the location are
the general resemblance of Hand 4’s script to that of the manuscripts
which Ólafur Halldórsson has particularly associated with Helgafell,
the brief presence in a few lines in the Jóns saga text written by Hand
3 of a hand not otherwise found in the codex and remarkably like that
of a known scribe of this Helgafell group (see p. 135*), and Selma
Jónsdottir’s willingness to assign the art work in Stock. 5 to this same
location.34
The orthography and to some extent the palaeography of Hand 4 in
122 a (= Hand 1 of Stock. 5) are described by Kálund, Sturlunga saga
I, xxv-xxxi, and some elements briefly by Jakob Benediktsson in EIM
I, 10-11; his orthography in 220 VI is detailed by Stefán Karlsson in
EIM VII, 43-45. In the main their descriptions hold good for the
scribe’s work in Stock. 5 and the following selective notes are no
more than complementary to their observations. While the scribe’s or-
thography is remarkable consistent in the three works that have sur-
vived in his hand, his word-forms in Stock. 5 show some variation.
Some detail of the variety is given below but comparison with 122 a
and 220 VI in these particulars has not been undertaken.
2. Hand 1: Script. The scribe abjures punctuation but commonly be-
gins a new sentence with a capital letter.
His er/ir abbreviation mark is a small horseshoe-shaped figure at an
oblique angle. It can indicate eir in ‘tveir’, ær in ‘vær\ ‘væri\ The ab-
breviation ‘mð(r)’, ‘md(r)’, is typical alongside ‘m;’ for með(r); used
also in conj. meðan.
Ligatured <h)+<f> and <þ)+<f) with a bar at the top are generally
used for ‘hans'’ and ‘þc.v.v(-)’.
<b) usually has the top of the stave looped to the right and closing at
the top of the bowl; the figure becomes a slender <B).
<f) is the insular <p>; the figure clinging to the stave is <3)-like. Oc-
casionally a form resembling <p) is used, with the adjunct a <2>-like
figure (e.g. ‘folk’ lvb7, ‘-festi’ lvb27, ‘faðir’ lvb28, ‘fordum’ lvb32,
‘fanngi’ 2ra3, ‘fann’, ‘fagrt’ 2ra6, ‘fatæku’ 2rbl4, ‘hafa’ 8rbll, ‘siaf-
ar’ 8val4). This older type of <f) seems to disappear after the first
34 Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags (1964), 14, 19.