Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.1997, Page 143

CXLI
and to have changed to another exemplar, presumably because of the poor
condition of the last verso in S6.
The new exemplar cannot have been S17, because at this point there is, and
always has been from the time it was written, a large lacuna in the text in this
manuscript (above, p.cxxxiv). Moreover, there is nothing to suggest that JV
used S17 further on in the saga. Certainly extended copying is out of the ques-
tion, as may be seen by comparing the two texts (D and C in this edition).
It has always seemed likely, on the other hand, that he used the no longer
extant Ormr Snorrason’s Book. Much can be learned about this large collec-
tion of romances from references to it, descriptive remarks about it and quo-
tations from it by scholars in Sweden in the seventeenth century, and copies
made from it. For an introduction to the research into the manuscript, and
references, see Slay 1985a.
But Mírmanns saga in OS, according to current opinion, was seriously de-
ficient when JV wrote S47. There was a lacuna in the manuscript, in which
the beginning and the greater part of the saga had been lost, leaving only the
end of it. It is uncertain how much remained, but the suggestion made in Slay
1985a is that ff. 82-83r in OS contained Mírmanns saga\ this was a continu-
ous text of the end of the saga, between one-sixth and one-fifth of the whole
saga as it is in S47.
The end of the saga in S47 (from p. 166, or slightly earlier, through to the
end) differs markedly from all other versions quite frequently, in ways un-
likely to be due to alteration by JV. If it was, in essentials, copied from OS, it
may be worth remarking that OS is thought to have been a manuscript from
the second half of the fourteenth century, i.e. older than the existing Mír-
manns saga vellums.
The clearest evidence for JV’s use of OS for the end of the saga is found in
the similarity between his text in S47 and a quotation in a lexicographical
work which is attributed to OS and which contains the name Mírmann. Olaus
Verelius, Index Lingvœ Veteris Scytho-Scandicæ, 1691, has on p. 207, s.v.
Rioda:
Cod. Orm. pag. 165. Skal eg fornfæra Myrman gudunum, oc rioda med has (sic) blodi
þeirra stalla.
The text in S47 reads (D 3161'2):
og skal i yckar brödkaupe Mirmant offra gudunum, og riödra (sic) medur hanns Blödi
þeirra stalla.
The preceding part of the sentence has the subject ‘eg’.