Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.1997, Blaðsíða 139

V. THE D-TEXT
Papp.fol. nr47
Papp. fol. nr 47, here referred to as S47, is a large manuscript containing thir-
teen romances and tales listed in the catalogue as Mírmants saga, Gibbons
saga, Flovents saga, Remundar saga, Bœrings saga, Gabons saga ok Vigoles,
Saulus saga ok Nikanors, Drauma-Jóns saga, Æfintýr um einn konungsson,
hertugason ok jarlsson, Æfintýr um Gautýr markgreifa, Alaflekks saga, Róm-
ferla þáttr and Artus saga Bretakonungs (Gödel 1897-1900, 158-60). The
manuscript is one of several written in Sweden with the same format and lay-
out by Jón Vigfússon (ÍÆ, III 301), working for the Collegium Antiqvitatum.
The manuscript is in two columns; the inner contains the texts, and the
outer has been left blank for a translation. The items have been separately
paginated by the scribe, and were handed in on various dates in 1690-1. So
were items in other manuscripts he wrote, and they have not been bound in
the sequence in which they were handed in.
Mírmanns saga is paginated 1-203 (the following three pages are blank).
Before this is a title-page for the saga, and on this has been written the note
‘Inlefvereradt d. 4 Mai 1691 | 26 Ark’, i.e. the 208 pages of this saga. Just be-
low is ‘Bl. l’, the beginning of a modern foliation of the whole manuscript.
On p. 203, well below the end of the saga, there is a note by the scribe, ‘Endir
Mirmantz spgu | J Wigfus(son) | Jslend(ingur)’.
The title on the title-page reads ‘Hier byrjast | SAGANN | af | Mir-|mant
syne Her-[manns Jarls og | Birgida’, in which ‘Mir’ is written larger than the
other lines. The title on p. 1 is different: ‘Sagann | af | Mirmant | og Sesseliu |
i Sikiley’ (‘Mirmant’ is written large). Both can be assumed to have been
made up by JV.
There are thirty-two chapter divisions. The first eleven occur in the same
places as in S6 (text A’), which is thought to be the exemplar for this part of
the saga. The exemplars for the rest of the saga in S47 no longer exist, but
perhaps the other chapter divisions, which are more numerous than in any
other existing manuscript, are also faithfully reproduced from them. Each
chapter, however, is introduced by a summarizing phrase or sentence, e.g.
"Frá Hermann | og Birgida forelld-1 rum Mír- | mantz’ for chapter I, and these
surely all owe much to JV’s invention.
The saga is complete in S47. At the time JV wrote it, there were in
Stockholm, as is well-known, two manuscripts containing parts of the saga
which are still extant (S6, text A'; S17, text C), and one about which a good
deal is known though it has since disappeared (Ormr Snorrason’s Book, see
below, pp.cxLi-cxLii; here referred to as OS). All were deficient, in different
ways, and no combination of them would have provided a complete text of