Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.1997, Blaðsíða 146
CXLIV
sometimes the prolongation of a letter, has been replaced by a full stop, or oc-
casionally a comma. Many unwanted marks of punctuation have been silent-
ly omitted: some thirty of them could be regarded as merely filling up the line
of writing, or as a mark at the end of a line not intended to have meaning (like
the unwanted ‘hyphens’ which occur occasionally); but for the most part they
are unthinking errors, e.g. after ‘skal’ D 1214, or after ‘lid’ 1236. In spite of
these numerous emendations, ineptitudes remain, some of them frequent
enough to become recognizable features: the end of a clause is anticipated in
about twenty instances, e.g. after ‘aud’ 1536; a comma may be placed after the
first of two words joined by ‘og’, as at 2637; and expressions such as ‘sagde
hann’ in mid-sentence may have a comma before them and not after, or vice
versa, e.g. 1416, 127.
A hyphen at the end of a line has been omitted in the transcription, but has
been reproduced when it occurs in the middle of a line, e.g. ‘kuadd-ur' 1247.
The double stroke used frequently over ‘a’, ‘o’ and ‘u’ is usually large and
clear; the vowel so marked is not always long. In c. 50 instances, a small pro-
portion, the second stroke is less strongly written, or appears as a dot only, in
c. 30 instances the diacritic appears as a single stroke, and sometimes both
strokes are short. All have been printed with a double accent.
A double dot or mark is used frequently over ‘i’ and ‘y’ (not always a long
vowel). This is sometimes large enough to resemble some instances of the
double stroke over other vowels, but since there is generally a clear differ-
ence, all instances of T’ and ‘ý’ have been printed with a double dot. When the
two dots are widely separated, confusion is possible with other dots above the
line of writing.
‘ö’ is usually represented by ‘o’ with one stroke above it and another mark
of some kind below it (printed ‘0’); it is sometimes represented by ‘ó’, only
rarely by ‘au’ or ‘o’, and apparently not at all by ‘q’. In many of the instances
of ‘0’ the lower stroke is no more than a small mark in the lower part of the
‘o’, or below it, sometimes well below it, and in the latter case confusion is
possible with dots or marks above the next line of writing. In this and other
respects the occurrence of apparently meaningless dots and strokes of the pen
is apt to cause uncertainty.
Blaisdell (1965, xxv) has said of JV’s copy of Erex saga that it is a pecu-
liarity of the manuscript that dots and strokes of various sizes and shapes are
scattered liberally throughout the text, and has described some examples. He
concluded that there is no apparent system to these marks and no particular
purpose; they may merely be an attempt at ornamentation. Mírmanns saga in
S47 presents the same appearance. An explanation of some of the marks may
lie in the fact that in many instances the mark is over the end of a word, and it
may perhaps be thought of as concluding the writing of the word. Even so,