Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.1997, Page 26

XXIV
1. Bevers saga, ívens saga, Parcevals saga, Valvens þáttr and Mírmanns
saga. Ff. 22-149. Ends with a gathering of eight leaves.
2. Clárus saga. Ff. 150-9 and missing leaves (a gathering of six leaves?).
3. Pjalar Jóns saga, Flóvents saga and Elís saga. Missing leaves (two
gatherings of ten leaves?) and ff. 160-213. Ends with three separate leaves
(presumably once a gathering, perhaps originally two bifolia rather than three
leaves).
4. MqííuIs saga, Eiríks saga and Konráðs saga. Ff. 214-22 and 1-21.
Although the contents of 179 and S6 match almost entirely, and 179 is
derived from S6, it is notable that only the contents of booklet 1 are in the
same order as in S6.
179 is for the most part in the well-known hand of séra Jón Erlendsson. Af-
ter a period at Klausturhólar, he became vicar of Villingaholt in 1639, and he
died in 1672. It is known that he copied many manuscripts for Brynjólfur
Sveinsson, bishop of Skálholt, and that he had begun doing so by the early
1640s (Springborg 1977, 70). The present manuscript, a typical example of
his work in format, handwriting and orthography, may also have been written
for the bishop, but there is nothing in it to indicate when he wrote it in the
possibly long period of his scribal activity.
It is not known how or when Arni Magnússon acquired the manuscript, and
very little is known about its previous history in Iceland. Several unidentified
people have sought to make good deficiencies in it, not only by substituting f.
22 and adding f. 209, as already mentioned, but also by filling in some of the
gaps, large and small, which JE left in the text (the largest are in Bevers saga,
ff. 29v-30v, and Flóvents saga, f. 161, in one hand or two, but at any rate dif-
ferent frorn the hands on ff. 22 and 209). On f. 84v there is a record of a
change of ownership written in 1687 or 1689, but the people whose names oc-
cur there, Finnur Þórarinsson and Gísli Arnason, have not been identified (cf.
Blaisdell 1979b, civ).
Mírmanns saga is incomplete in 179. It begins at the top of f. 126r and ends
in mid-sentence at f. 148r20. The rest of the recto and the whole of the verso
of f. 148 were left blank; the most likely explanation is that the exemplar was
deficient and the space was left for insertion of the end of the saga if it be-
came available later.
A space has been left at the bottom of f. 136v and the top of f. 137r, equi-
valent to eight or nine lines. There is a marginal note in JE’s hand on f. 136v:
‘Hier giet eg ecke lesed kalffskinna skridduna sókumm sorta. enn Bær. jall
misti hofuded j þessu einvijgi’. The end of the text on f. 136v corresponds to
the text in S6, as far as ‘bryniuna’, the last word but two in the last line on f.
69v. If JE was copying S6 (which need not be doubted), it appears that he was