Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2001, Page 72

LXVIII
Introduction
§ 1. Möðruvallabók, AM 132 fol. (M), is the largest single collection of
Sagas of Icelanders to have survived from the Middle Ages. It was
written before or around 1350, perhaps somewhere in North-East Ice-
land, and its current name (two others have been in use) derives from
the location at which its penultimate owner in Iceland, lögmaður Magn-
ús Björnsson of Munkaþverá in the Eyjafjörður district, signed his
name in it in the year 1628. When brought to Denmark half a century
later by this owner’s son, sýslumaður Björn Magnússon, the codex had
probably already lost the two outer leaves of the third gathering of
Egils saga. Thus the latter now occupies a total of 74 pages, but there
were originally 78. The text is written in double columns of normally
41 lines; the strophes, though written as continuous prose, are identi-
fied by the sign v (abbreviation for vísa) in the margin.
§1.1. The principal scribe, assistant scribes, and the poetry in M. The
principal scribe of M is well known as the writer of fragmentary manu-
scripts containing biographical, religious, romantic, and legal litera-
ture. In Egils saga he has employed an assistant to fill out the text of
13 of the saga’s strophes. This assistant, who is also known from an-
nalistic and legal manuscripts, has written strs. 1, 8-9, 19-20, 24, 34-
36, 38, 42, 49, and the first and only strophe of Sonatorrek (str. 50). He
has also shared the writing of strs. 32-33 with the principal scribe. A
second assistant has supplied str. 23 (see however footnote 6). More-
over, there are three places where the principal scribe has left space for
strophes that have never been written in, and of which there is no trace
in the other redactions.
In Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning Finnur Jónsson based his
text of certain strophes from Egils saga on manuscripts of the B-redac-
tion. This applies even to strophes that are wholly or partly transmitted
in manuscripts of the A-redaction.
§ 1.2. The rubricator. Yet another scribe has provided chapter titles in
crimson and dark red. These titles sometimes do not correspond to the
actual content (e.g. ch. 21). The same hand is probably responsible for
the large illuminated initials at the beginning of chapters.
§ 2. Wholly or partly illegible passages in M. Most of M is easy to
read, but some pages that have been particularly exposed to wear and