Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.1997, Side 144
CXLII
No other text of the saga has anything like the sentence in Index and S47.
Nor does even the sense of it occur anywhere else.
The differences between the two renderings of the first clause can be ex-
plained. The interest of the sentence for Verelius lies in ‘rioda’ in the second
clause, and it is possible that the first clause has been shortened in quotation,
and made clearer by the addition of the pronoun subject. Even so, ‘fornfæra’
is presumably accurate, and then JV, if he was copying OS, must have substi-
tuted ‘offra’ and changed the word-order. Such are changes he is known to
have made quite often.
On the other hand, if the quotation in Index is accurate, then there is a
further considerable alteration in the same clause to be attributed to JV, name-
ly the addition of ‘i yckar bmdkaupe’. This also is not inconceivable. It is not
necessary to think that JV was copying a text like OS but not OS itself.
A second piece of evidence for JV’s use of OS is found in another quota-
tion, in an unpublished work. The quotation can be identified through its
distinctive sentiment as from Mírmanns saga. Laurentius Bureus, Lexici
Antiquæ Lingvœ Scantzianœ Littera B, in MS F. e. 1 in the Royal Library in
Stockholm, has on f. 47r, s.v. Breiskleik:
Orms book. Ey hefr min kuenligar (sic) breiskleikr sigrat ydor, heller (sic) styrk ok al-
mattigh Guddomsis (sic) hand.
This puts one in mind of the scene where Cecilía reveals herself to Mírmann,
having overcome him in single combat some time before. A form of the sen-
tence is found there, but in only one manuscript, S47 (D 3238'41):
ad eigi kefur (sic) minn kuennligur kraptur og Breiskleiki kunnad ad sigra og yfirvinna
ydur, sem ad þier meigid ad spnnu sialfir siá og eirninn merkia, helldur styrk og almáttug
Guds Drottins h0nd.
The essentials are the same, and this shows that the sentence in the lexicon,
said there to be from OS, came from Mírmanns saga in that manuscript. The
considerable differences, on the other hand, can mostly be attributed to JV;
most of them look like expansions by JV in his well-attested manner, and as
with the first passage discussed, there is no necessity to think that JV was
copying anything other than OS in this part of the saga.
As well as showing that JV was here using OS, the passages also provide a
further illustration of how much JV might alter the wording. Readers of text
D may often suspect JV’s intervention, as in the following examples taken
from the part between the two quotations: