Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.10.2003, Blaðsíða 24

6*
General introduction
whole closer to B (“að texta er M ýmist fylgjandi V eða B og stendur
yfirleitt nær B”18).
All three editors concurred in giving an A-class text pride of place as that
which most closely represented the original: Guðbrandur says, “Da nun A
oder die Vatnshyrna ... den reinsten und vollstandigsten Text der Saga
enthalt, so haben wir ihren besten und zuverlássigsten Zeugen, námlich Aa,
zu Grunde gelegt und zur Berichtigung der wenigen Fehler und kleinen
Liicken, an denen auch sie leidet, die Handschriften Ab und Ac herbei-
gezogen”;19 Gering: “Die A-klasse steht ohne frage dem original am
náchsten ...”;20 Einar Ólafur says, more cautiously, that he had no alter-
native to using the V class as basis since it was the most trustworthy and the
other manuscripts were fragmentary (“Hins vegar gat ekki komið til mála
að leggja annað handrit til grundvallar útgáfunni en Vatnshyrnu, bæði af
því að texti hennar er í heild áreiðanlegastur og önnur handrit eru í
molum”).21
Guðbrandur, however, was to change his mind about the closeness of the
A class to the original. In 1864 he had drawn attention to the fact that B
often employs archaic and rare expressions, where A has more familiar
equivalents. He listed some of these “alterthúmliche und seltne Worte”.22
But he drew from the comparison the conclusion that the B author had deli-
berately archaized the text. This rather perverse assumption he withdrew
when writing Origines, and decided that it was the A author who had made
the changes, in a desire for modernization.23 A view similar to Guð-
brandur’s later judgment was expressed by Einar Ól. Sveinsson, who con-
sidered that while Vatnshyrna is the most polished and on the whole the
best of the Eyrbyggja saga manuscripts, nevertheless, whenever E and M
agreed against *A, it was their wording that usually seemed the older and
presumably more original: “Vatnshyrna er sléttmálust og yfirleitt bezt
handrita Eyrbyggju. Þó hygg ég, að þess séu dæmi, að þar sé vikið við
orðum, þegar skrifara þóttu þau fomleg eða óvanaleg, og má bezt sjá það,
þegar 162 og M fara saman; þar munu þau oft hafa eldra orðalag”
18 Einar Ól. Sveinsson in IFIV, p. lx.
19 Guðbrandur Vigfússon 1864, p. xxvii.
20 Gering 1897, p. xxvii.
21 Einar Ól. Sveinsson in IFIV, p. lviii.
22 Guðbrandur Vigfússon 1864, p. xxix. It is not uncommon for writers of manuscripts to archa-
ize texts if they think old words are inevitably more beautiful, but the insertion of rare words is
less likely. Examples of the supposed intrusive old wording are ‘toreggiaðri’ (W 25.86) ‘um
slungit’ (W 30.46) ‘um sitiendum’ (W 42.54). To Guðbrandur’s examples may be added W’s
‘mostu maðr’ W 45.9. Cf p. 16*. See also Rode 1985, p. 899.
23 Guðbrandur Vigfússon and F. York Powell 1905, vol. II, pp. 88-90.