Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Page 213
THE L RECENSION
171*
might however be made in the case of 70val-3. Here the ductus ap-
pears to be more regular than usual and palaeographic novelties ap-
pear: <f), hitherto made with a <3)-like figure attached to the stave, is
twice made with a single <2>-like loop, so the letter resembles <p> (cf.
p. 160*); the ascenders of <b>, <h>, <1>, <þ> have a slight serif at the top
left - they are otherwise generally made with a top curl to the right;
the top lateral stroke of <z> does not have the marked hairstroke exten-
sion to the right commonly found elsewhere; and there is an ortho-
graphic novelty in the spelling ‘feck’ - before this <kk> is regularly
written for the geminate. These changes may have been induced by an
alteration of practice in the exemplar but the lines are possibly in a dif-
ferent hand. They appear to have had some influence on the following
script. In the first three lines after this intervention the scribe uses his
so far normal double-loop <f)39 but the next <f> to occur, at 70val3, has
the <p>-like form and this shape is maintained to 70vbl3, after which
the scribe reverts to the double-loop and continues with it to the end of
the text, also intermittently writing <ck> as well as <kk>. He may have
thought he could finish his work by the end of fol. 70v; the 28 lines
needed to complete it on fol. 71r are more relaxed in their word-
spacing. He marks the end of sentences with a point more or less on
the line, and sometimes begins new sentences with a capital letter. He
makes numerous mistakes in spelling and here and there in word-
order.
<a> is two-storeyed and <e> is regular bookhand <e>. <e2> is however
common, chiefly at word-ends but also in ‘er’ and abbreviated ‘e1’, ini-
tially in ‘eftir’ 70vb9, 71ral, internally in ‘hefdi’ 71ra9. The writer
sometimes makes a letter like <ð>, especially on 71r, but <d) is the norm
for d and ð. For nn a form resembling <h> with the second vertical
going below the line is sometimes used. Long p is written <pp> in the
usual way. <f> usually sits on the line but in 69rb7-15 and 70ral4-20,
23 it descends below the line, and it has the same extension more often
than not on 71r. Round <s> is comparatively rare, found most often in
abbreviated ‘ser’, ‘sua’ (‘suo’), ‘sem’, ‘konungs’, ‘hans’, and sporadi-
cally in other words, usually in final positions. Initial <v> can have the
<b>-like form found in charter hands. <x> has a simple unbarred form.
39 In ‘Effesum’ 69vb20 the first <f> is roman, the second the usual insular form.