Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Síða 255
THE H RECENSION
213*
before 1691. These came to him as separate parts, all written in the
hand now identified as that of sr. Jón Pálsson, the Jóns saga and
Guðmundar sögur in his book-hand, the Greenland material in his cur-
sive script (specimens of both are reproduced by Olafur Halldórsson,
Grænland, 166-67). Ámi Magnússon borrowed the 395 Guðmundar
saga early on, since Þormóður refers to its retum in 1691. Then at
some stage Þormóður detached the 398 Guðmundar saga copy and
gave it to Árni. In May 1701 Ámi asked Þormóður to bring the volume
with Jóns saga, Guðmundar saga and ‘Samtyningur um Grænland’ to
Copenhagen, should he be coming that summer (Brevveksling med
Torfæus, 343). Þormóður evidently did as he was asked, and the book
was doubtless among the many more which, in a letter written in Oc-
tober 1705, he pointed out were still in Árni’s hands (Brevveksling
med Torfæus, 393). At the latest in 1709 Árni must then have taken the
volume with him to Iceland. He spent the winter 1709-10 in Skálholt,
where his old friend of school and student days, Jón prófastur
Halldórsson, was in his second year as stand-in rector of the cathedral
school (Jón Helgason [biskup], Jón Halldórsson, 92-102, 143-44).
That sr. Jón got to know the books Árni Magnússon had with him may
be taken for granted, but is also evidenced by the requests he made,
once he was back in Hítardalur, for loans from Ámi. When in October
1711 (Private Brevveksling, 184-85) Ámi wrote to him to say that he
could not at present lend him Jóns saga and Guðmundar saga, he was
most likely referring to the volume belonging to Þormóður which con-
tained these texts, now AM 392 and 395 4to. (There is no reason to
suppose sr. Jón had Greenland in purview at the time, so no signifi-
cance need be attached to the absence of mention of the Grænlands-
annáll, now AM 768 4to.)
Ámi probably never handed over the Þormóður volume to sr. Jón
but when he left Iceland in the autumn of 1712 he passed on to him the
S2 text in AM 391 4to (see pp. 102*-05*). That copy could compensate
sr. Jón for deprivation of the H text in 392, because at some time be-
tween 1701 and 1712, probably earlier rather than later in the period,
Ámi had compared the 391 text with 392 and entered material from the
latter as marginal annotation in the former. (He also had more extensive
passages copied from 392 to make the supplement to the 391 text de-
scribed on pp. 217*-18*, and it is likely that this supplement was with
391 when he left it with Jón Halldórsson; cf. p. 219*.) When Árni got