Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.10.2003, Page 48
30*
E (AM 162 Efol.)
appear below the entry, written with a light black lead pencil and probably
in Kr. Kálund’s hand.
The hand is the same throughout the seven leaves, all of which consist of
a single column. F. 1 has been cut down, so that it comprises a little more
than a quarter of the size of the others. Ff. 2 and 3 are conjugate, both ca
168 mm wide; both contain the same writing area but f. 3 has wider top and
bottom margins, being ca 255 mm long as against ca 242 mm; both have 47
lines on each side but the lines are slightly further apart; the leaf measures
ca 275 mm x 165 mm (average). F. 5 has the same number of lines and is
roughly the same size. F. 6 also measures ca 275 mm x 165 mm but has on
each side only 45 lines of writing. F. 7 has been cut down obliquely across
the top; what is left measures ca 225 mm x 167 mm and contains 37 lines,
only a third of the top line surviving. There are thus probably 8 2/3 lines
missing from each side of f. 7.
By calculation it can be seen that two leaves have been lost between f. 6
and f. 7. 162 2/3 extant lines of E correspond to 324 lines of the IF edition,
so one E line is represented by almost two IF lines. Therefore the missing
section, which contains 387 ÍF lines, corresponds to 194 lines of E.
However, since some nine lines have been cut off f. 7r, this leaves 185 lines
for the missing leaves, clearly two in number. It is indeed possible that the
material of IF chapter XLVIII occurred, as it does in W, after the Fróö-
árundr (rather than before as in the A text), but as that chapter takes up only
ten lines in ÍF, this scarcely affects the result.
Both leaves of Eyrbyggja appear to have been used as covers for
notebooks; the rectos of each are worn and faded. They were read by ultra-
violet light, as was possible in the 1960s but would not now be permitted,
and photographs taken by ultra-violet light were also used.
2. Linguistic and textual features
1. PALAEOGRAPHY
The examples given are all from the leaves containing Eyrbyggja (see
previous section), but in the Laxdœla part of the manuscript the hand
appears to be the same. Statistics are given where it appears they might
throw light on the scribe’s usage.4
4 The treatment of E in this introduction is more detailed than that for W, G and M, in view of its
greater age.
J