Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.10.2003, Page 23

Manuscripts and editions
5*
method of work was responsible (“eine von den vielen leichtfertigen be-
hauptungen Guðbr. Vigfússons, die seine hastige arbeitsweise verschuldet
hat”13). Gering too regarded C (for a different reason from Guðbrandur) as
occupying an intermediate position between A and B, most closely related
to the B class, but undoubtedly influenced by the A class in many places in
a way that is not easy to account for (“sie ist zwar der B-klasse am nachsten
verwandt, hat jedoch haufig eine schwer erklárliche, aber ganz
unzweifelhafte beeinflussung von A erlitten”).14 The present edition, it is
hoped, makes the position of M easier to explain, see below, pp. 15*-18*.
Hugo Gering prepared his normalized edition of Eyrbyggja saga for the
series Altnordische Saga-Bibliothek15 which, despite his criticism of
Guðbrandur’s edition, relies largely upon Aa. Basing his work on a new
collation, Gering’s aim was to provide a text as near as possible to the
original (“einen text zu geben, der dem original möglichst nahe kommt”).16
Gering also opined that without doubt the A class is the closest to the
original, and its best representative Aa has therefore become the basis of
his edition: “Die A-klasse steht ohne frage dem original am náchsten und
ihr bester vertreter, Aa, ist daher auch meiner ausgabe zu grunde gelegt.”17
Einar 01. Sveinsson, too, based his 1935 edition on the A class, emended
in places from the vellum manuscripts, from which he also gave selected,
but fairly copious, variants. In his preface he discussed the choice of the
base manuscript, and decided that Vatnshyrna (i.e. the *A copies) was the
only possibility (see below).
Einar Ól. Sveinsson kept Guðbrandur’s term B for all manuscripts that
belonged neither to his ‘V-flokkur’ (/ e Guðbrandur’s ‘A-Classe’), so called
from presumed descent from the destroyed Vatnshyrna, nor to the group
denoted by Einar Ólafur ‘M-flokkur’ after its most prominent member,
Melabók. The other members of his ‘M-flokkur’ are paper manuscripts,
whose relationship to M has turned out to be a rather remote one. Einar
Ólafur agrees with Gering in making M stand between A and B, but on the
13 Gering 1897, p. xxviii.
14 Gering 1897, p. xxviii. According to the Læsesalsprotokol of the Amamagnæan Collection,
Gering during August-September 1894 consulted AM 448 4to, AM 309 4to, AM 445 b 4to, AM
450 a 4to and AM 162 E fol.; these were retumed to the librarian 15 September 1894. According
to the correspondence of the Amamagnæan Commission, Gering wrote in September 1894
asking to borrow, for four weeks’ use in Kiel, AM 448 4to and AM 309 4to. On 6 March 1895
Gering wrote asking Kr. Kálund, then librarian, for AM 126 fol., AM 442 4to and AM 446 4to. It
seems Gering was not able to complete his proposed critical edition; he died 3 February 1925.
15 Gering 1897.
16 Gering 1897, p. xxx.
17 Gering 1897, p. xxvii.