Gripla - 2023, Blaðsíða 201

THE GENESIS OF A COMPOSITE 199
AM 239 fol. as exemplar
The composite nature of AM 239 fol. has considerable implications for
one of its copies, namely SÁM 1. This manuscript is, as previously stated,
written by the scribe H2, as well as two other unidentified scribes.57 It
contains a multitude of postulasögur, amongst others Pétrs saga postula
(fols. 1v–27va30), Andrés saga postula (fols. 36v58–39vb32) and Tveggja
postula saga Jóns ok Jakobs (fols. 40r–81v). Although Pétrs saga postula and
Andrés saga postula also occur in AM 239 fol., they apparently were not
used as exemplar by H2. Despite the version of Pétrs saga postula found
in SÁM 1 and AM 239 fol. being the same, namely “Pétrs saga postula I,”
Ólafur Halldórsson asserts that the exemplar used in SÁM 1 is unknown,
thus excluding the possibility that H2 copied it from leaves in AM 239
fol.59 Ólafur does not expand on the textual relationship of the Pétrs sögur
found in the two manuscripts further, but probably would have done so
if it would have further strengthened the connection between them, and
consequently the Helgafell-group. Other scholars working with this mate-
rial are silent on the relationship of the two texts. It cannot be ruled out
that both H2 and H3 used the same exemplar for Pétrs saga postula, but
to dive deeper into any possible textual relation goes beyond the scope of
this article.60
The version of Andrés saga postula contained in SÁM 1 differs from
AM 239 fol., meaning that AM 239 fol. did not serve as an exemplar for
57 Ólafur Halldórsson, ed., Sögur úr Skarðsbók (Reykjavík: Almenna bókafélagið, 1967), 11–12.
The older scribal discussion by Desmond Slay only suggested two scribes. See Desmond
Slay, ed., Codex Scardensis, Early Icelandic Manuscripts in Facsimile 2 (Copenhagen:
Rosenkilde og Bagger, 1960), 10.
58 The rubric initiating the text is in the last line of fol. 36rb.
59 Ólafur Halldórsson, Sögur úr Skarðsbók, 27. Kirsten Wolf catalogues the version of Pétrs
saga postula “Pétrs saga postola I,” and lists both AM 239 fol. and SÁM 1 as text witnesses
for this version. See Kirsten Wolf, The Legends of the Saints in Old Norse-Icelandic Prose,
Toronto Old Norse-Icelandic Studies 6 (Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press,
2013), 314–15. An earlier overview of saints’ lives in Old Norse literature lists both SÁM 1
and AM 239 fol. under Pétrs saga postola I; however, SÁM 1 is catalogued as I a and AM
239 fol. as I c, see Ole Widding et al., The Lives of the Saints in Old Norse Prose. A Handlist.,
Medieval Studies XXV (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1963), 329.
60 In the introduction to Pétrs saga postula, Unger categorizes both SÁM 1 and AM 239 fol. as
manuscript group A, together with a third manuscript, AM 639 4to (Unger, Postola Sögur,
p. xiv). Unger does not elaborate on the connection between these manuscripts. A source
that might shed more light on the matter is a PhD dissertation from 1994, but unfortu-
nately the thesis is not accessible (H. C. Carron, “A Critical Edition of Pétrs Saga Postola
I, Based on the Codex Scardensis” (University of London, 1994).