Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.10.2003, Blaðsíða 57

Linguistic and textual features
39*
5. ERRORS AND UNIQUE READINGS
In this regard, there are no contemporary MSS with which to compare E,
but the MS has a number of idiosyncratic forms. For these see Individual
Word Forms, above.
3. Date and relation to other manuscripts
It has been claimed that up to five other manuscripts contain work by the
scribe of AM 162 E fol. In a slip laid inside AM 162 A 8 fol., it is suggested
that the leaves from AM 162 E fol., AM 162 A 8 fol., and Stockholm,
Kungliga Biblioteket, Perg. 4to no. 18 were written by the same scribe. It
reads in Guðbrandur Vigfússon’s hand: “Þetta brot er með sömu hendi og
eflaust eptir sama mann, sem Laxdælu og Eyrbyggju brotin í Add 20 folio
[the former designation of AM 162 E fol.] 'og Ólafssaga Odds múnks í
Stokkhólmf [marginal addition in another hand (Finnur Jónsson’s?)] en er
þó úr annarri bók. Höndin er auðþekt.” An third hand, probably Kálund’s,
has added “Sml [compare] Morkinskinna”. Finnur Jónsson, in his edition
of Egils saga, also stated12 that the scribe of the fragment of Egils saga in
AM 162 A 8 fol. was identifiable in AM 162 E fol. (Laxdœla saga and
Eyrbyggja saga), in the Oláfs saga Tryggvasonar in Stockholm (Perg. 4to
no. 18) [ff. 35-54] (on the authority of Guðbrandur Vigfússon), in a single
leaf of Orkneyinga saga in AM 325 III (3 4to (on the authority of Kr.
Kálund13), and, “jeg kan tilföje, pá selve Morkinskinna" (GKS 1009 fol.),
by which Morkinskinna’s Hand I, who wrote the major part of that work,
was presumably meant. Shortly afterwards, Kr. Kálund in his edition of
Laxdœla saga, passages of which are contained in ff. 1-5 of AM 162 E fol.,
gives the same list as Finnur Jónsson, but with the addition of AM 655
XXXII 4to (Maríu saga). He remarks that the hand “har sandsynligvis
tilhprt en professionel skriver”.14
Of these five manuscripts the one that seems to the present writer to be
closest to the hand of E is AM 325 III (3 4to, a single leaf from Orkneyinga
saga. It shares, among many other features, the individual shape of (g), (y)
and (0>, the absence of the (u> graph, and the use of (n> in menn. The (s>
graph is occasionally used at the end of a word (‘Magnvs’ lv.17, ‘styrks’
lv.32), as also in E. The use of ‘man’ as present tense of munu occurs in
lv.28, c/E 41.95, 45.17.
12 Finnur Jónsson 1886-8, pp. xvi-xvii.
13 Finnur Jónsson 1886-8, p. xvii.
14 Kálund 1889-91, p.xxi.