Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.1997, Blaðsíða 97
xcv
The first saga, paginated 1-52, and occupying three gatherings of eight
leaves and one of two leaves, is in one unidentified hand. It may have originated
separately from the rest of the manuscript.
The second and third sagas, paginated continuously 1-52, and occupying
six gatherings of four leaves and one of two leaves, are in different hands. The
second saga is in at least two unidentified hands, if not three (the first wrote
one gathering, pp. 1-8; the second wrote the rest, except for two-and-a-half
pages, pp. 25’-2712). The third saga, which begins on a verso, p. 38, is in yet
another hand, but in this case the writer’s name is given in a sentence at the
end, ‘Sagan er | Skrifuð af Arna Þórarinssyni á Klettakoti | og á hana | Jón
Jónsson á Purkeý’. The sentence appears to be written by the scribe, but may
have been written by the owner; the capital J in the last line is like the J in the
name on the flyleaf (see below), and not like the J in the text. The scribe Arni
Þórarinsson is otherwise unknown. Klettakot was a smallholding in Stóri-
Langidalur, Skógarströnd, Snæfellsnes.
The remaining items, 4-7, which include Mírmanns saga, are paginated 1-
291. They make an indivisible part, for where one saga ends, the next begins
on the same page. They are in one hand, and the scribe has ended by listing
the four sagas, with a page index, and declaring ‘þessar | Sögur eru upp-
skrifadar af Frid|riki Jónssyni á Rifgyrdíngumm | Veturinn 1883 af 62 ára
gömlumm kalli’. There are other manuscripts extant written by Friðrik Jóns-
son (Skrá, II 233 and III 53), and there is a sketch of him in his grandson’s
autobiography, where it is said that he copied many sagas and rímur, writing
in the evenings, and using a writing slope (púlt) which he placed on his knees
(Jón Kr. Lárusson 1949, 9-12, a reference I owe to Einar G. Pétursson). Rif-
girðingar was an island farm off Skógarströnd.
The Jón Jónsson of Purkey said after the end of the third saga to be the
owner of it was doubtless the owner of the whole manuscript when it came to-
gether, and from the dates in the manuscript he is to be identified as the first
of two nineteenth-century men of this name, who were father and son (1812-
88 and 1857-1927 respectively). The father appears to have made a consider-
able collection of contemporary manuscripts, later dispersed.
The name ‘Jón Jónsson | Purkey’ has been written on the recto of the flyleaf
at the beginning of the manuscript as an owner’s inscription. The assumption
that this is the signature of the first Jón Jónsson (d. 1888) can be confirmed by
elimination. The handwriting is not the same as in the certain signature of the
second Jón Jónsson in a book from 1896, nor that of the third man of the same
name in the family, b. 1901, which also is known from his signature in a book
(both are in books owned by Einar G. Pétursson).
The list of contents on the verso of the flyleaf seems also to have been writ-
ten by this same first owner.