Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Síða 305
KNOWLEDGE OF JÓNS SAGA
263*
‘husprey min er eigi sua sæmiliga sett ok halldin sem eck’ L;
‘kona hans skylldi eigi vera sett iafnnvirðvliga sem hann’ S;
‘kona hans skilldi eigi sett verda Jafn vel’ H.
(c) ‘þer mgdgur komv fyrer konvng’ Bb. (Nothing comparable
in Tsk.)
‘þær mæðgur (4- SH) voru i gongu meðr Astriðe drottningu’
LSH.
A (a) reflects a change in emphasis in the Tsk.-Bb. version of this
anecdote, with more attention paid to Egill than to him and Tófi to-
gether. That could be due to Icelandic self-preoccupation, but possibly
to the influence of Jóns saga, where of course Tófi plays no part at all.
A (b) and (c) appear to be related to a Jóns saga text. One would sup-
pose that (b) in Tsk. is an altered version, but it could be that it is clo-
ser to the sub-archetype represented by Tsk.-Bb., and that Bb. has been
further affected by a Jóns saga account, cf. below on B (a) and (b).
The correspondence in the use of the verb birtask in A (c), restricted to
Tsk., may be an independent recollection of a Jóns saga text, or a co-
incidental reading; but it is also possible that it stood in the sub-arche-
type and was omitted in Bb.
The agreements under B are peculiar to Bergsbók. B (a) clearly de-
pends on a Jóns saga text, we cannot tell which. B (b) is close to SH,
but could conceivably be a simplifying paraphrase of L.
The instances under C are remoter. They probably show influence
from a Jóns saga text more like L than S and H. It is thus probable that
the editor of the sub-archetype from which the Tómasskinna and
Bergsbók versions of Egils þáttr were derived was influenced by
knowledge of Jóns saga', and certain that the writer of the Bergsbók
version further borrowed particular phrases from a Jóns saga text, not
necessarily quite identical with the S or H redaction known to us. The
sub-archetype in question presumably came into being some time in
the fourteenth century; the Bergsbók version perhaps towards or about
1400. The problem of the ultimate provenance of Tómasskinna and
Bergsbók and of other manuscripts in which their scribes are repre-
sented, AM 180 a fol., AM 238 XVI fol., NKS 1824 b 4to, Stock. perg.
4:o nr 6, has not been solved; for discussion see EIM V, 13, VI, 16-23,
X, 22-25, XVIII, 18; Agnete Loth, Opuscula, III, 65; Stefán Karlsson,
Opuscula III, 81-82; Ólafur Halldórsson, Gripla VII, 83, n. 17.