Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series B - 01.10.1965, Blaðsíða 38

XXXVI
brunner’s basic contentions is of considerable importance
for the evaluation of A and B, i.e. that B copied at least
the names more faithfully than A (p. 1, and throughout).
He pays considerable attention to the names in the list
of wedding guests, but I do not believe that for a general
evaluation the list—where each name is a unique occur-
rence—is the best place to begin. The following remarks,
then, concern the names other than those of the guests.
The first observation is that a majority of the names,
some twenty-seven, show either complete agreement be-
tween A and B or only minor differences, e.g. Balsant/
Baslant, Jochim/Joachim. Some seventeen show greater
variation, although even here there is in every case some
similarity. The second observation is that quite a few of
the names find no immediate counterpart in the French,
and these are therefore of little help in establishing the
relative merits of A and B. A major difficulty in comparing
forms from ES with those in the French stems from the
fact that the precise French MS from which the original
translator worked is not known and very possibly no
longer exists. The variants of the existing French MSS
are simply all we have to work with today, but any
attempt at precise derivation of a form in ES from a
specific French form may, in general, be rather dubious.
To begin with the most important names, Erex in A is
a bit closer to the French Erec than is Erix in B. The B
form probably has its i under the influence of the similar
and very common native name, and actually the form
Eirix occurs several times (31:20, 36:23). Evida in A is
also closer to the French Enide than is Ovide in B. It is a
distinct possibility that the original—at some point—did
not use capital letters in names, and that o and e were
hard to distinguish (both just happen to be true for AM
556A, for example; see below under 1230). If so, then e
could easily be misread as o (Gutenbrunner’s explanation
of the o as Norwegian labialization, p. 16, is hardly