Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.1997, Blaðsíða 129
CXXVII
159, þórer 1055, Gúd 1946, þaú 19143. Other ways of indicating length are also
used. The preposition/adverb á is very seldom written á as in 9', but almost
always œ, e.g. 922, or ca, e.g. 935, and three times cá, 1528, 188, 2065. Nonethe-
less, áí and ca are only exceptionally used elsewhere: in ækafliga 1063 and
aaþeckur 20173, and in sæi (verb) 913, saa (verb) 1248 and þai (adverb) 1925.
The spelling é in words such as hét 933, sté 940, occurs c. 45 times, but the
spelling ie is slightly more common, e.g. hiet 1060, sie 973. In words where r
follows the vowel, the spelling used is i plus the er-abbreviation; there are al-
most 200 instances, e.g. hier 927, þier 948. The spelling ié occurs six times, e.g.
liét 92. The preterite of falla is féll three times, e.g. 944, and fell once, in 1018
(the context requires a preterite); e alone for é is rare, but does occur, e.g. het
1064. The preterite plural of fá occurs twice, spelled with é, féngv 1612, féngi
19130; the singular is spelled féck twice, 1150, 2045, and feck twice, 115', 2041.
The spelling ég occurs twice, 1912, 20110.
The letter i, for short or long vowel, often has a single acute accent; this
diacritic is not reproduced in this edition. The long vowel is written f twelve
times, e.g. ltf 930, and ij twice, tijda 138, lijfs 20131 (ljkna in 993 may be mis-
written); it is written Jin f burtv 19129. The spelling þicker occurs once, 20174.
There also occur lfet 19148, Jolum 1366.
Both spellings e and ei are used before gi, gj, but e is still the more common
(in a proportion of 3:2), and occurs in a variety of words, whereas ei occurs
only in forms of segia. Examples: legit 938, seger 9", odrumegin 10'°, feginn
1044; seiger 92.
Except in gengi 138, 1317 (in which the vowel may be long, cf. above for the
spelling, and cf. Jensen 1983, cxcm), only ei is used for older short e before
ng: eingla 99, eingi 925, feingit 979, etc.
The letter y, for y orý, usually has a dot over it (not reproduced here), and
is written in accordance with etymology: fylgdv 912, dyrligaztur 9910. Þickia is
always spelled with i, but samþyckiazt ll31 has y. On the few occasions when
they are not abbreviated, uncontracted forms of mikill are spelled with i, con-
tracted forms with y, e.g. mikils 9103, myklv 165.
Both ó and o are common for ö, e.g. skðmm 93, óllv 93, óllvm 918; ollvm
918, onnr 921. Before ng the usual spelling is au (av), e.g. aungv 1048, lofsaung
1084, but ó does occur, e.g. stóng 1510; au (av) also occurs in other positions,
e.g. aurugu 928, faudr 967 (23 instances). There are at least seven instances of
ó instead of o, e.g. fórtolvm 1134"5, órdit (verb) 1250, órdvm 1252.
Both i and e are used finally, with i slightly more common: ecki, betri 91,
reisti 910, diófli 912 etc., alldre 94, ætlade 914, kyne 915, þeirre 917 etc. The end-
ing irler is almost always indicated by a superscript sign, transcribed as er,
e.g þicker 9'; er occurs a few times written out, e.g. aller 913, stefner 1039, but
ir only once, in the abbreviated þe5.vir 1536.