Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.1997, Blaðsíða 64

LXII
ten in a number of unidentified hands. It has been described in Skrá, II. Auka-
bindi, 18, and in two articles, Slay 1970, 261-3, and Slay 1994, where more
detail can be found than is given here.
When it was made 633 was an impressive volume. It is still in fairly good
condition, but the ink has faded in places (and in consequence sometimes
been overwritten), pages have become dirty, and leaves have mouldered at
their edges. In the binding and rebinding of the manuscript, leaves in some
parts have been trimmed so much as to cause loss of the running title, the
page number, and even text; fourteen of the sagas have been affected in this
way. Restoration work has been carried out in recent times. The gatherings lie
in the cover but detached from it and from each other.
Each saga begins at the top of a recto, and it is notable that in twenty-eight
of the thirty-four cases this is also the beginning of a gathering. In many sagas
the size of the last gathering has been adjusted to the amount of text to be ac-
commodated. Elsewhere the gatherings are usually of six or four leaves, but
eight and two also occur (one saga, the only saga in this hand, is written on six
consecutive bifolia and a final single leaf with a lap).
Changes in writing occur quite frequently, and almost always coincide with
the beginning of a saga and the beginning of a gathering. Fifteen units of writ-
ing can be distinguished according to the changes in writing. Nine of them
contain only one saga each, others are confined to one place in the manuscript
but contain more than one saga, and yet others are divided over more than one
place.
It is likely that in some cases distinguishable units of writing were the work
of one person whose handwriting changed slightly, perhaps with the passage
of time, and perhaps only six people were involved in the writing of the
manuscript. The one who wrote the largest unit, which is c. 31.5% of the
whole (and includes Mírmanns saga), may have written more than all the
others put together, c. 62.7% altogether.
From a damaged note which belongs to the manuscript it is clear that it was
written for Lauritz Gottrup (IÆ, III 393-4). Precisely when is not known, as
the year is missing from the date of the note, but in the period when he lived
at Þingeyrar, 1684-1721, and (in part, at least) later than 1693-5, the time
when 4859 was written, as that is thought to be the source of Mírmanns saga
in 633.
Some later owners are known or can be conjectured. On a preliminary leaf
before f. 1, a Kár Olafsson of Munaðarnes (Mýrasýsla) recorded that he had
received the book as a gift from a relative, Þorbjörn Bjarnason, in 1750 (al-
tered from 1740), and that he had had it rebound in 1781. Later another owner
wrote on the title-page ‘BBenedicti possessor’, probably Bogi Benediktsson,
1771-1849, the compiler of the work later published as Sýslumannaæfir. A