Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.1997, Side 109

CVII
3.4 Derived from A6
Lbs 221, fol.
Lbs 221 fol. is a large anthology of sagas, rímur and other items; forty-one are
listed in the catalogue, and several small items are passed over (Skrá, I 75-7).
Except for some substitute leaves, the contents are written in one hand, and
the numerous dates given by the scribe range between 1819 and 1832; most
are in the period 1821-4. No date is given for Mírmanns saga, the end of
which is on a substitute leaf, but it begins on leaves which are conjugate with
leaves containing the end of an item which is dated ‘d. 12 Aprilis 1832’.
The manuscript contains no statement of where or by whom it was written.
But the hand seems to be the same as in IBR 38 8vo, which is said by Páll
Pálsson on the title-page to be ‘með hendi Jóns í Þrándarholti’. Þrándarholt is
in Gnúpverjahreppur, Árnessýsla. A Jón Jónsson, a farmer aged 57, was living
there in 1845 (Manntal á íslandi 1845, 273-4).
The leaves comprising pp. 307-10 have been made by sticking strips of pa-
per together. There are a few scattered printed phrases and names in Danish
on them.
A title page (‘SÖGU- OG RJMNA- | BÓK’) and a systematic list of con-
tents have been added to the manuscript later.
Leaves have been added in seven places to replace original ones, and the
pagination (rectos 1-443, and occasional versos) includes the new leaves.
Many leaves have had their edges strengthened by strips of paper stuck to
them. Mírmanns saga is on pp. 143-65 (166 is blank). Pp. 149-52 are new,
and the writing ends near the bottom of p. 151. There are fewer lines to the
page, and fewer words to the line, on the new pages, and the three used new
pages correspond in amount to one lost original leaf. Pp. 165-70 are also new.
Here the end of Mírmanns saga is supplied on the greater part of p. 165, and
the very small remainder of the page and p. 166 are blank; the following pa-
ges, 167-70, contain the beginning of the next text (the original leaves of
which were written in 1819, i.e. earlier than the probable date for Mírmanns
saga). It is likely that the six new pages correspond to two original leaves; the
first of these will have contained the end of Mírmanns saga on approximate-
ly two-thirds of its recto. If the rest of the leaf contained text, it has not been
preserved; it may have been blank, and the end of a gathering. Mírmanns
saga was probably the last item in the manuscript to be written, though now
placed in the middle of it.
In other places the new leaves seem to correspond one to one to the now
missing original leaves. But at the last occurrence, pp. 427-8, the text is in-
complete, and the writer ended with ‘Hjer vantar’. On p. 387 (an original leaf)
the text breaks off in mid-sentence in the middle of the page; a short scholar-