Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.1997, Side 31
XXIX
ten in the period before he went to Greenland as a missionary; he was a stu-
dent in Copenhagen 1759-61 and remained there, engaged in literary activi-
ties, until 1765 (ÍÆ, I 334).
A second note in 999 (both are printed in Skulerud 1918, 43-4), in a differ-
ent hand, gives details of a collation the writer of the note undertook of ‘den-
ne min Afskrift’ with another manuscript, which he describes. This owner of
the manuscript was probably Danish; he has not been identified. Perhaps 990
and some or all of the saga manuscripts that have been mentioned, including
Mírmanns saga, were also written for him, as Olafur Halldórsson has sugges-
ted.
At some time or times unknown these manuscripts came into the posses-
sion of the antiquary James Johnstone. Little is known about his early life, but
he was Chaplain and Secretary to the British Embassy in Copenhagen in the
time there of Morton Eden (afterwards Baron Henley), 1779-82, and Chargé
d’Affaires there for fifteen months in 1785-6 during the absence on leave of
the envoy Hugh Elliot. His writings were published in Copenhagen between
1780 and 1786, at which time he described himself as Rector of Maghera-
cross in Ireland. He seems to have continued to visit Denmark or live there
until at least 1790; he was in charge of affairs at the embassy again between
the departure of the envoy in November 1789 and the arrival of his successor
in June 1790. He died in Ireland in 1798. See Waterhouse 1931; Mitchell
1959, 40-2; Anna Agnarsdóttir 1993, 30.
Trinity College bought Johnstone’s considerable collection of Icelandic
manuscripts on 27 February 1800 from James Vallance, a bookseller, for for-
ty guineas (Library minutes, TCD MUN/LIB/2/1). His Northern books were
sold by auction in 1810.
The title on p. 1 of 1000 is ‘Sagann af | MÍRMANN’. There are twenty-one
chapters, numbered I-XXI. In the parts where comparison can be made with
S6, 179 and 181 g, this text lacks six of their chapter divisions (at A 8', 10',
13‘, 14', 18' and (omitting almost a whole chapter) 23'), but it has one extra
one (at A 2463); two others are in slightly different places (at A 39 instead of 31,
and 448 instead of 41). Each page is headed with the title ‘Mírmans Saga’
(spelled with ‘nn’ six times near the beginning), and with the chapter number,
in an arabic numeral. The opening words are ‘A dpgum Clemens Páva, riedi
eirn | ágiætur kongur fyrir Fracklandi sem’ etc.
The text in 1000 is called A4 in this edition. It will be argued below (pp.XLii-
xlix), that it is probably derivedfrom S6, and that it is not from 179 or 181 g. If
this is so, it is secondary for the part of the saga which is preserved in S6, but
for the continuation, where there is a lacuna in S6, it is primary. Variants are
printed from it for comparison with 179 and 181 g where these provide the text
(A 1 189-2494), and its text is printed once these cease (A 2495-2640).