Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.1997, Side 70
LXVHI
311-50. Brandkrossa þáttr and Vápnfirðinga saga. Colophon:
Þesse Saga og Nærste Þattur Framan | hana, eru skrifader effter
Manuscrip|to Sr Iöns Halldorssonar (halærds Mans) Profasts,
ad Hýtardal - og endud á 0krum d. 21sta Martii. 1764 af | ÞSig-
urdssyne.
351-2 blank, the last two leaves of a gathering.
Scribe D Pp. 353-972. The remaining fifteen sagas, among them Mír-
manns saga.
Two notes on p. 3 give some information about the history of the manu-
script. After the death of Jón Arnason his books and manuscripts were sold by
auction in Copenhagen; 395 fits the description ‘32 Den Islandske Historie
Liosvetninga og Svarfdæla Saga &c. Mscr.’ among the folios in the sale cata-
logue, and there is a note on p. 3 of the manuscript, ‘Kiöbt paa Sysselmand
Jon Arnesens | auction d. 4. Janv. 1779. | cst. 3 Rd’. Judging from examples of
his handwriting preserved in the archives of the Arna-Magnæan Commission,
Nos 116 (1787) and 126 (1790), the new owner may have been Skuli Thorla-
cius (1741-1815). The supposition gains strength from the fact that the next
known owner is his son, Birgir Thorlacius (1775-1829), as is declared in a
note in pencil on p. 3, ‘e libris | Birgeri Thorlacii’. By 1847 it was the proper-
ty of Det kgl. nordiske Oldskrift-Selskab, and it passed to the Arna-Magnæan
Commission in 1883.
Mírmanns saga is on pp. 417-80. The title is ‘Sagann | af | Mirmant’, and
the opening words are ‘A allda daugom Clemens Pava i Romaborg redi’ etc.
As in the other sagas written by scribe D, but only exceptionally in those by
the others, each chapter begins with a decorated initial, which is sometimes
quite large, and each has the first line of text written large. The chapters are
numbered, except the first; there are twenty-one chapter-divisions, occurring
in the same places as in 633 (above, p.Lxm), from which this text is thought
to be derived.4
395 agrees with 633 in all the variants listed for 633 on pp.Lxiv-LXVi, and
in the readings of 633 mentioned earlier there, and also in many other minor
variants which it would be superfluous to list in print. Nowhere in 395 is there
a reading which would run counter to the assumption that its text is derived
from 633.
4 Mírmanns saga is not the only saga 395 and 633 have in common. Nine of the sagas written
by scribe Ð, items 9-17 in Kálund’s list, also occur in 633, and in the same sequence, and two
others, 18-19, and one by scribe C, item 6, also occur in 633 in other parts; the relation between
the manuscripts in these sagas has not been investigated.