Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Page 220
178*
INTRODUCTION
mal bookhand and is represented by only one page, a comprehensive
comparison is not possible. They share extended use of <*) (Hand 2’s
use could almost be called indiscriminate), use of modified <o) (usual-
ly <p» for æ alongside the normal ligature, confused use of <d> and <ð>
(though <ð) is rare in Hand 4), ‘æ1’ as the chief abbreviation for eigi,
retention of y in fyrir, yfir, <o> preferred to <u> as the neg. prefix, pron.
‘hon’, absence of <giæ>, <kiæ> spellings, ‘Skalholt’, adv. ‘val’.
Hand 4 displays some differences: <fu> and <gh) spellings, common
in Hands 2 and 3, are rare; <e2) is found in Hands 2 and 3 but has not
been noted in Hand 4; the abbreviation ‘æl’ occurs alongside ‘æ1’ for
eigi; Hand 2 writes ‘þui’, 3 writes ‘þui’ and ‘þi’, 4 ‘þij’ and ‘þi’. Hand
3 has both ‘iartein’ and ‘iarteign’ (there is no instance of the word in
Hand 2), Hand 4 writes only ‘iartein’. Hands 2 and 3 have both ‘bledz-’
and ‘blez-’ spellings, Hand 4 only ‘bledz-’. On the other hand, there is
freer indication of the svarabhakti vowel in Hand 4 than in Hands 2
and 3.
Hand 5 has distinctive features which suggest a different school
again, possibly a different generation. He uses <þ> for medial and final
ð but since this practice tails off as the text progresses he very likely
adopted it from his exemplar. His natural inclination seems to have
been to write kk, not <ck> as usual elsewhere in the codex. Lines
70ral-3 appear to have influenced this spelling habit and also caused
the temporary use of the oldfashioned <p)-like <f> (otherwise found
only in the early stages of Hand l’s contribution; see p. 160*). He
writes <æ), <e> or marked <e> for æ (and older œ); <ft> spellings are
more frequent than <pt) spellings; he abbreviates eigi as ‘e1’; his f.
pron. is ‘hon’ but <u> is commoner than <o> as the neg. prefix; he re-
sembles Hand 1 in writing only ‘blez-’, adv. ‘vel’, dat. sg. n. ‘þui’
(sometimes abbreviated ‘þ1’); his form, ‘iarteikn’, is not found in any
of the other hands.
Hand 1 copied Guðmundar saga and Guðmundar drápa within
twenty years or so of their composition; Hands 2 and 3 copied Jóns
saga in a recension we can date to the 1320s but their exemplar was an
intermediate copy of that recension, again probably not more than
twenty years or so older than their transcript in Stock. 5. The Þorláks
saga text copied by Hands 3 and 4 was of thirteenth-century origin;
the Játvarðar saga copied by Hand 5 is unlikely to have been put to-
gether before the first quarter of the fourteenth century. In the circum-