Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Page 240
198*
INTRODU CTION
þetta at framanverdo ... hefi ec ritat epter Sa/gobók fra Sysslom.
Biama á Stadarhóli; A exscripto var stór gamaldagsha/nd; þat var
vissolega Autographum oc mátti þat bgdi ráda af siálfri fráspgninni,
sem oc þui sem stód a spátiunni i exscripto ut frá þessum ordum.
= dótter Þorláks Ragneidr, hver nu á Jón pr. Olafss. (þar stendr) er
þetta scrifadi Melanesi 1676. (ber her saman vid þat sem stendr i
Crisi aptan vid Sa/guna af Jóni biskupi helga).
There is thus no doubt, as noted in Hdraskrá I, 351-52, that Bjami Pét-
ursson’s book was 396. The marginal note referred to in the last-quoted
passage is found on fol. 41r of 396, though the margin is now wom and
all that can be read of the last three words is ‘skrif ... Melan ... 16.. ’.
On fol. 237v, after the reference to the ‘Sögubók’, the writer contin-
ues, some lines later, ‘Efterfylgiande umm Eggert Eggertson var fram-
an á Saurbladenu skrifad i sömu Sögubók, þó sem mier vyrdest ej med
samre hönd.’ There follows part of the supplement to Jón Gissurar-
son’s Ritgerð, cf. Safn I, 698-700. This saurblað no longer exists in
396.
Bjami Pétursson ríki (1681-1768) is well known; see e.g. Smæ. II,
106-08; ÍÆ I, 188; Þorsteinn Þorsteinsson, Magnus Ketilsson sýslu-
maður, 8-14; Friðrik Eggerz, Ur fylgsnum fyrri aldar I, 5-16. He lived
at Staðarhóll 1748-56, otherwise chiefly at Skarð on Skarðsströnd.
Since the references in 795 speak of him specifically at Staðarhóll,
396 was presumably borrowed to take the copy in 795 during his
residence there. There is no indication of the identity of the copyist,
evidently a man of formal education and presumably a cleric. He in-
cludes Jón Gissurarson’s triplet at the end of the saga and has a note at
the foot of fol. 210v, ‘vid. interpol:’, with an asterisk to refer to the
phrase ‘segia papistar’, in parentheses above and similarly marked,
first introduced in 205 at L1 40/48.
The transcript is generally accurate. The edges of fol. 65 in 396
were already damaged when the copyist of 795 used it, and he was
careful to mark with a varying number of dots the resultant loss of
text, e.g. (with the number of dots standardised): ... =þar (jardar L
40/24), ... (meðr L 40/27), ... (uiðr L 40/28), ... =kri (himneskre L
40/29), ... (Ierusalem L40/31), ... =f (fram af L40/32), ...idnir (þa er
liðnir L 40/33, t.n.), ... (ok (2) L 42/15), ... (likit L 42/18). He intro-
duces some fresh errors, e.g. (readings first from L' = 396, whose