Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2001, Page 70

ENGLISH SUMMARY
By Michael Chesnutt
Editor’s Preface
§ 1. Principal redactions ofEgils saga. The saga of Egill Skallagríms-
son is transmitted in three distinct redactions. The chief witness to the
A-redaction is Möðruvallabók, AM 132 fol. (Reykjavík), abbreviated
M. The chief witness to the B-redaction is Wolfenbiittel, Herzog Au-
gust Bibliothek MS 9. 10. Aug. 4to, abbreviated W. The chief witness
to the C-redaction is Ketilsbækur, AM 462 4to (Reykjavík) and 453 4to
(Copenhagen), abbreviated K (K', K2).
§1.1. The A-redaction has the fullest prose text. It includes, for exam-
ple, the episodes about the shepherd Iri (ch. 83) and the aged Egill’s
scheme to create a disturbance at the Alþingi (ch. 85). Briefer passages
characteristic of A are the incident in ch. 85 with the aged Egill and the
kitchen maid, including str. 60, and a report later in the same chapter
about the supposed location of Egill’s hidden treasure. The A-redac-
tion preserves most of the lausavísur but lacks the two long poems
HQfuðlausn and Sonatorrek (with the exception of the first strophe of
the latter). At the same time, apart from a few scattered verses in ma-
nuscripts of Snorra Edda and the Third Grammatical Treatise, the only
medieval authority for the third long poem, Arinbjarnarkviða, is an ad-
dition in codex M of the A-redaction. All existing editions of Egils
saga are directly or indirectly based on M.
§ 1.2. The B-redaction of the saga shows a tendency to abbreviate.
Codex W, on the other hand, is the only manuscript of this class to con-
tain Hgfuðlausn. There is a lacuna where Sonatorrek ought to appear in
W, but the related manuscript AM 463 4to has the opening strophe.
All the indications are that M and W were written about the middle of
the fourteenth century. In a fundamental study from 1956 Jón Helga-
son showed that missing passages in both manuscripts can be reco-
vered from seventeenth-century copies. In the case of M these copies
were made from a non-extant original copy (*M‘) that had been writ-
ten prior to the loss of two leaves.