Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.10.2003, Page 150

128*
447 (AM 447 4to)
28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37) five are inserted complete in 447 by ÞJ: 5
20 24 28 36,11 while he has made corrections or additions to the following
13: 3 4 6 10 11 21 22 23 25 26 27 32 33. Thus, the total number of stanzas
copied wholly or in part by ÞJ from M (and still extant) is 18. Of these 18
eight are still preserved in M itself, so that the number of recovered M vísur
is ten out of a possible twenty: 5 20 24 25 26 27 28 32 33 36 (numbering of
complete stanzas italicized).
Stanzas 1 and 2 in 447 bear no trace of corrections by ÞJ, and may not
have been in M.
Stanza 31 is indicated by the phrase ‘Biorn q(vad) v(ysu)’ in 447 (42.84)
but not quoted. There is a sign for it by ÞJ but no fulfilment; it is doubtful
whether it was ever in M.
Stanza 34 is indicated in 447 (55.72-3) by the phrase ‘orte Þormödur
TrefellBon j Hrafnz málum’ but not quoted. There is no referring sign by ÞJ
and the stanza was therefore probably never in M.
The harvest of recovered M vísur is thus not negligible, though it is a
slightly disappointing one, for there are more than a quarter of the stanzas
in Eyrbyggja saga of which we are not able to say for certain whether they
were, in the seventeenth century, present in, or absent from, Melabók.
Firmer evidence would also have been welcome concerning the brief
chapter dealing with the emigration of two sons of Þorbrandr to Greenland
and Snorri Þorbrandsson’s subsequent visit to Vínland (‘Vindland’ in Z and
447). In the A-type manuscripts the Vínland chapter is placed after the
chapter about Bjqrn Ásbrandsson’s departure from Iceland. In W it is
placed after the Fróðárundr. In E it does not appear after the end of the
chapter about Bjprn’s departure, with which f. 6 begins, but since the end
of the Fróðárundr is missing from E there is no direct evidence that it oc-
cupied that place in E. Similarly, the end of the Fróðárundr is missing from
the surviving M leaves. In Z it is in the same position as in A and conse-
quently the Vínland chapter is in 447 immediately after the one about
Bjprn. ÞJ drew an incomplete rectangle round that passage in 447 (his
chapter 49), showing that it was not in this place in M, as we in any case
know, since this particular passage occurs on f. 8v. But when, in 447, we
turn to the end of the Fróðárundr there is no indication whether M had the
Vínland chapter at that point, likely though that hypothesis might seem.
There is another lengthy passage present in *A but not W - the encomi-
um on Arnkell that follows the discovery of his death, ÍFIV, p. 103, lines 7-
13 ‘því at hann - nú kom fram’. This is present in almost the same words in
11 And in addition possibly 37, which may have been present in a strip of 447 that was torn off at
the foot of f. 49r.