Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.10.2003, Blaðsíða 68

50*
W (Wolfenbiittel 9.10. Aug. 4to)
accident made all the more possible because the material was skaldic verse
and not immediately comprehensible.
It is clear that f. lr was as difficult to read as it now is, and that the
beginning of the MS was already lacking when this copy was made. The
copyist made good the missing portion by adding, first, f. 3 - f. 15 (Th,),
and later, ff. 1 and 2 (Thj). For these portions he used two other exemplars.
One, which supplied Th2, and must have been without its first leaf, is
related to the version preserved in H, where it appears in a somewhat
reduced and simplified redaction, but one that does have the beginning of
Eyrbyggja saga, absent in AM 446 4to. Of the first two leaves, Th, (the last
leaves to be written), all that can at present be said is that they are less close
to the text of G than to that of *A and M. AM 446 4to is the ancestor of
many paper copies, as is clear from their containing these three parts.
The other copy of W, AM 450 a 4to, was made by Ásgeir Jónsson at the
instigation of Árni Magnússon (p. 46*). It has corrections by Árni himself
and, from the next century, by Jón Sigurðsson, and is now a highly accurate
text.25 This MS has proved useful in the transcription of W, and Árni’s
report on the work of copying, written on an inserted slip, is of value:
Membrana Wolfenbuttelensis, sem þesse min Eyrbyggia saga er epter
ritud, byriazt i þessarri bok pag. 115. a þessum ordum: enn ok vita
hvat i vill geraz. þat fyrsta af bökinne er rifid burt, og er þat hier ritat
epter annarre bok usqve ad pag. 114 inclusivé verba ista: freista m°u
ver. Fyrsta sidan i membraná Wolfenbiittelensi (su sem byriazt á þeim
ordum: enn ok vita, sem adur er sagt) er orden miög litt læs, þo gat eg
lesed hana, og byriazt hun sem sagt er, og endazt pag. 121. med
þessum ordum: hvart þf færi til þings. Önnur [with ‘2da’ written
above] (vinstre handar) sidan er allæs, og byriazt hun med þeim
ordum pag. m. (pagina mediá) 121. ok kostim ver. Sidan er Sagan
læseleg ut til enda.
Þesse Eyrbyggia saga er annars saman lesen vid nefnda membra-
nam Wolfenbuttelensem á dicta paginá 115. (epter þat hun epter
nefndum Codice ritud var) og er ordrett per totum librum á dictá
paginá 115. og qvod ad verba concordans cum dictá membraná
Wolfenbúttelensi. Stafrett er þesse Copia eigi, svo at þar se uppa at
byggia, nema i visunum og notabilioribus locis, þar er hun accuraté
confererud, etiam qvod ad orthographiam. Collatio er giórd af Jone
Torfasyni26 og mier.
25 Man Isl III, p. xiv.
26 An Icelandic student in Copenhagen, d. 1712.