Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series B - 01.10.1965, Qupperneq 33

XXXI
before / in 5 (or 6) examples: lœpara (6:14), leypur (57:18),
liöds (5:18), liöp (49:26), lö (45:30). The sixth, saupara
(38:26), is of special interest, since the s- must be a mis-
reading of an / as a tall s, which would indicate that forms
without h were present in B’s original (see below on
“Orm’s Book”). h- is preserved before / in 20 examples:
hleypir/-ur (7:30, 32:16; etc.), hiiödss (9:29), htiöp (34:25),
etc. The form æigi/-e is by far more common than eigi—44
occurrences as compared with 6. sem (64:19; cf. note)
may be sam, or even som, and val (25:29) does occur
once clearly. It might be added, however, that there are
no examples of mier/mid for vier/vid. The question is, how
many of the possible Norwegianisms may represent
features which have been preserved from the original
translation. The possibility that they do can not be denied
absolutely, but the evidence for Norwegian origin is not
exactly overwhelming.
Now it is necessary to discuss B's immediate original.
The so-called “Ormr Snorrason’s book” (OS) was an
Icelandic MS, probably from the 14th century, which is
now lost, but which was copied—at least in part—by
Jón Vigfússon.4 OS was also used by Swedish lexico-
graphers in the 17th century for excerpting. Since ES
was one of the sagas contained in this MS, and since
precisely Jón Vigfússon was the scribe for B, an investiga-
tion of the Swedish lexicographic material might prove
useful. In the Index Lingvœ Veíeris Scytho-Scandicce sive
Gothicce of Olaus Verelius (Upsala, 1691; cf. TMS, pp.
xxiv-xxv) I found the following excerpts of ES from
OS:
4 V. Gödel, »Ormr Snorrasons bok«, Nordiska studier tillegnade
AdolfNoreen (Uppsala, 1904), pp. 357-74. Sven A. Grén Broberg,
»Ormr Snorrasons bok«, Arkiv Jör nordisk filologi, Vol. 24 (1908),
pp. 42-66. Trójumanna saga, ed. Jonna Louis-Jensen, Editiones
Arnamagnæanæ, A, Vol. 8 (Copenhagen, 1963), pp. xi-xxxi;
referred to as TMS.