Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.1997, Blaðsíða 91

LXXXIX
Lbs 2114, 4to
Lbs 2114 4to is a collection of fifteen sagas, listed in Skrá, III275, and nine short
tales and anecdotes, ending with a list of the main items. The manuscript is pagi-
nated, with some omissions towards the end. As a result of use of the number 36
twice (though the second was afterwards corrected), the versos bear odd num-
bers from that point onwards. The numbers 365-6 have been used twice.
The gatherings are of eight leaves, except the first and last, which are smal-
ler and which have been repaired at the spine and edge. It is not apparent from
the contents that anything is missing at either end. One gathering, pp. 74-89,
has been bound in the wrong place, after the gathering that ends with p. 26.
Pp. 1, 3-5 and 13-40 have been lined in pencil, with a frame round the text
area; elsewhere there is only a frame or margin, and occasionally no marking
at all. Pp. 409-82, which include most of Mírmanns saga, are written in red
ink, and so are the following recto page numbers as far as 500.
The manuscript may be in one hand throughout, though the writing some-
times appears less confident and flowing in the early part (usually on the lined
pages).
Pp. 533-4, facing pages near the end of a gathering, were originally left
blank in the course of a saga, presumably by oversight, and have been used
for some anecdotes.
Pp. 97-8, in the centre of a gathering, were also originally left blank in the
same way. The scribe has written on p. 98, mostly in pencil but ending in ink,
‘Sögusafn Skrifad af | Sigfúsi Sveinssyni | þá á | Mauntaun (sic) 1892 til 3 | nú
í | Minnisóta P.O. Lolita’. The first place mentioned is doubtless Mountain, N.
Dakota.
The writer has not been identified. The only Sigfús Sveinsson known as a
possibility is the one mentioned in Skagfirzkar Æviskrár: Tímabilið 1850-
1890, V 353. He was a son of Sveinn Sveinsson, a farmer at Sleitustaðir, and
his first wife Sigríður, daughter of séra Skúli Tómasson of Múli, and his dates
are given as 1833-1917. According to the author of the article in the source re-
ferred to there (Almanak 1931, ed. Ólafur S. Thorgeirsson, Winnipeg, 50 and
81), he came from North Dakota to settle land in Nýja-ísland (west of Lake
Winnipeg), apparently in 1901.
On p. 97 the scribe has written a line of verse, which either is incomplete or
is completed by one or two undeciphered words in the next line. With the
third line begins a list of Icelandic names in alphabetical order, and this is fol-
lowed by the scribe’s signature. He has also stamped his name in the margin
on pp. 401,416 and 559.
The manuscript later belonged to Sigmundur M. Long, who wrote his name
on the flyleaf, with the date 1915 and ‘N° 69’, the number the manuscript has
in his catalogue. Compare the description of 2122, below, p.CLVii.