Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Page 229
THE L RECENSION
187*
Square brackets on fols. 48v and 51r mark the beginning and end of
L2, fol. 1, see L 8/5, 12/24; cf. Jón Sigurðsson in AM 394 fol., fol.
269r.
Arni Magnússon’’s Sæmundar þáttr. In his Vita Sæmundi multiscii
Ami wrote critically of Resen, Guðmundur Andrésson and Runólfur
Jónsson, who had followed Björn á Skarðsá’s account of Sæmund’s
escape ‘arte eluso’ from his master abroad (Levned II, 106-07; cf. p.
207*, n. 1 below). He goes on: ‘is (sc. Björn) vero eadem extraxit ex
insulsá fabulá, qvibusdam S. Jonæ vitæ exemplaribus insertá’, and
then gives an abbreviated version of the story told in the Sæmundar
þáttr, L1 chs. 16-17. Arni evidently wrote from memory. He begins by
saying that the tale reports ‘Sæmundum maternam lingvam ... oblitum
fuisse’, which is not in Jóns saga but corresponds rather to Björn’s ac-
count, ‘náliga týnt hafði sínu inoðurmáli’ (Munnmælasögur, civ). He
then abridges the story and shortens the time-span, but also adds a few
explanatory details unwarranted by any Jóns saga text (‘Kolli nomen,
á magistro scilicet inditum’; ‘absente magistro’; ‘sed mox dempto cal-
ceo’).
Ami Magnússon knew the L version of Sæmundar þáttr in the lost
manuscript from which he made his excerpts for Bartholin in Don. var.
1, vol. XII, in the winter of 1684-85 (see below); in AM 205 fol.,
which, as noted earlier, probably came to Arni late in 1692; in AM 210
fol., which was probably in his possession before he got 205 (see pp.
193*-94* below); and the beginning of it in AM 392 4to, which he
borrowed from Þormóður Torfason in 1701 (see p. 213*). Both the
lost manuscript and 210 were copies derived from 205. But when he
came to write up his material on Sæmundr sometime after 1706 the
‘fabula’ seemed to him so ‘insulsa’ that he apparently had no inclina-
tion to re-read it in any manuscript: ‘Puderet aniles hasce nugas ad-
scribere, nisi partem earum alios in Sæmundi vitá antea tetigisse
viderem.’
Don. var. 1, vol. XII.
This is one of four volumes (vols. X-XIII) containing “materialsam-
linger til Bartholins Antiqvitates Danicæ (delvis skrevne med Arne
Magnussons hánd)”; see KBKat., 421. This volume XII is all in Árni
Magnússon’s hand. Excerpts from or references to a text derived from