Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.1997, Blaðsíða 135

CXXXIII
vum Antiqvitatum (Nielsen 1946, I 90). S17 was probably one of them, and
will have passed to the Royal Library in Stockholm when the Archivum An-
tiqvitatum was dissolved in 1780. The binding is from 1843.
It is the accepted opinion that four of the six sagas in S17 are derived from
Stockholm Perg. 4:o nr 7 (S7), possibly copied directly, but there is no manu-
script now extant that could be the source of Mírmanns saga or Eiríks saga. It
is also agreed, however, that S7 and AM 580 4to, both now fragmentary, were
once parts of the same manuscript, and a foliation made before the manu-
script was divided up, though after some leaves had been lost, shows that
eighteen leaves have been lost subsequently from the beginning of the manu-
script. It is tempting to suppose that these leaves contained Mírmanns saga
and Eiríks saga, and that all six of the sagas in S17 were copied from the
same manuscript. See Jensen 1983, where more detail can be found.
If it is true that Mírmanns saga in S17 was copied from S7/580, its text, in-
complete though it is, might merit special attention as a copy of a lost medi-
eval manuscript which was considerably older than the extant ones (which
themselves are incomplete). S7/580 is thought to be from the first half of the
fourteenth century, or even the first quarter (ONP 456, 474). But if it was not
copied from S7/580, it still may well have been copied from a medieval
manuscript, since other sagas in S17 were. As its exemplar no longer exists, it
is a primary source, and it is printed in this edition as text C.
Little is known about the history of S7/580, together or separately, in the
seventeenth century. It is probable that Magnús Olafsson of Laufás had ac-
cess to S7 c. 1633, since verses with translations and commentaries which he
sent to Ole Worm included three from Jómsvíkinga saga copied from S7
(Ólafur Halldórsson 1969, 10; Jensen 1983, ccxxx note 29). It is surely more
than a coincidence that it is precisely these three verses that the scribe of S17
left untranslated in his manuscript. Whether he was working in Denmark or in
Iceland for his Danish patron, he presumably knew about the existence of
Magnús Ólafsson’s translations and left space for them.
It has been suggested that S7/580 was divided up in Iceland, perhaps when
inherited, but although the suggestion is reasonable in itself, there is no evi-
dence to show in which country or exactly when the division took place, or
how or by what route S7 reached Sweden. As for 580, all that is known is that
Arni Magnússon got it from Christian Worm in 1706; and it may be thought
likely that the latter inherited it from his father Ole Worm. So much is
unknown or uncertain in the histories of S7/580 and S17 at present, that
neither casts much light on the other.
S17, to summarize its early history, was written for someone who wanted a
Danish translation with the Icelandic texts, i.e. for a Danish patron, but by
whom and for whom it was written, and whether in Iceland or Denmark, are