Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series B - 01.10.1968, Page 142
CXL
Text G
The manuscript
ÍBR 113.8vo. According to Skrá III p. 247, the
MS consists of a number of sections that did not
originally belong together. They date from the 18th
century and were assembled by Jón Bjarnason í
Þórormstungu, who has written the title-page:
“Lítill Bækhngur Jnnihaldandi imisleg Gomul Kvædi
og nockur Æfintýri . . . Þetta skrifad í Januario
1844”, and added a list of contents. The MS has
been bound by Páll Pálsson, who has added yet
another title-page: “Ljóda-Safn VIII”, and replaced
a leaf that had been lost from the list of contents.
Leg. occupies pp. 385-96 (printed in this edition
pp. 86-90).
The sources
The G version has been compiled from several
sources. The main ones are the poems Sethskvæði
and Krosskvæði (rather than Gimsteinn), and a prose
version of Leg.
Sethskvæði is found in many MSS, one of which,
probably the oldest, AM 148.8vo, Kvæðabók úr
Vigur, has been edited in facsimile by Jón Helgason
in íslenzk Rit Síðari Alda, 2. flokkur I A with a
volume B, containing an introduction, 1955. The
poem is found on ff. 116v-121v, cf. vol. B, pp. 47-48.
Sethskvæði is the younger of the two poems and
can hardly date from earlier than c. 1600, partly
because no distinction is made between i, í, ei and
y, ý, ey, cf. the rhymes kind-mynd (117r), pín-sýn
(120r), meint-leynt (116v), and partly because the
rules for old vowel quantites are broken, cf. e.g. the
following feminine rhymes nakin-hrakin (117r), boði-
voði (117v), lidinn-fridinn (119r). Words containing