Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Qupperneq 216
174*
INTRODUCTION
mate source of the Seven Sleepers passage is William of Malmesbury
(c. 1120), the text here is derived from Vincent of Beauvais’ Speculum
historiale (c. 1260).42 The first form might be a back spelling but, if
so, it is a solitary instance. It is less likely to represent au monoph-
thongised to ö since the modern form sjö, as printed by Jón
Sigurðsson, is said not to be certainly attested before c. 1500.43 We
might take it to represent sjú (sjó), a form first recorded in Norwegian
in 1413 (see Fritzner IV). That could align it with the second instance,
‘seu’, though we could equally well follow Guðbrandur Vigfússon and
amend this as ‘se<a)u’ = sjau. (AM 219 fol. has three exx. of the
spelling ‘seau’, EIM VII, 17.) The scribe was fully capable of such a
slip and he sometimes spells <se) in forms of sjálf(-) and the verb sjá.
12. Hand 5: Orthography. Consonants. (i) <c> occurs occasionally
for k, ‘folc/í’ 70vb30, ‘slict’ 70vb37. On <ck> see (vi) below.
(ii) Medial and final ð are sometimes written <þ>, but on a diminish-
ing scale as the text progresses: some 20 instances are found in 69ra,
10 in 69vb, 6 in 70vb. In past parts. <t) is the ending after a stem in
d/ð, e.g. ‘halldit’, ‘raiþit’, <d> after a stem in t, e.g. ‘ritad’, ‘getid’,
‘litid’, ‘leitad’, ‘setid’. Prep. við occurs as ‘uid’ but it is usually written
‘uit’. The dental is omitted in ‘harla’ 69vb25. Older ð/þ becomes t in
e.g. ‘kveyktuz’ 69val7.
(iii) Intervocalic/is often written <fu>, e.g. ‘ifua’, ‘greifuin’, ‘sofu-
endr’; also after r before a vowel, ‘erfuingiar’; cf. on <u>/<v) above./b
is assimilated in ‘abburþar madr’ 70ra21. ‘iafn(-)’ is regular; the verb
samna/safna has the older form in ‘samnade’ 70rb41.
(iv) gg can be indicated by a superior dot, e.g. ‘Vggir’ 70va8, ‘ligg-
ia’ 71rl3. <g> for gg is not found. Palatalisation is indicated only in
forms of gjöra. Intervocalic and final g after a vowel is often written
<gh), e.g. ‘doghum’, ‘heilogh’, ‘hertogh(-)’, ‘handlaugh’, ‘dagh’; occa-
sionally after r and n, ‘morgh’, ‘drottningh’, ‘buninghi’ (at the end of a
line) and doubtless as a filler in ‘byght’ 71ra28, the last word of the
text before the closing Explicit.
(v) Initial hl- is written <hl) except in the word ‘(h)lutr’ and once in
Tiopu’ 70vb35, cf. ‘hliop’, ‘hliopu’ 70vb30, 31, 33. The combination
remains in ‘brudhlaup’ 69rb6. Initial hr- also remains except once in
42 Christine Fell, Anglo-Saxon England I (1972), 251-52.
43 Um ísl. orðmyndir, 39-40, 93-94; Bandle, 86.