Gripla - 2023, Síða 249

THE LIBRARY AT BRÆÐRATUNGA 247
readership, but it is impossible to know whether it came to Munkaþverá
before or after 1550 (DI V, 288).10
Finally, a vellum copy of Ólafs saga Tryggvasonar and Ólafs saga helga
(now AM 61 fol.), gifted by Magnús Björnsson to his wife’s niece Jórunn
Hinriksdóttir (c. 1614–1693), could possibly have been the Ólafs saga
mentioned in the inventory of Munkaþverá. This manuscript has been
identified as originating from a scribal network broadly associated with
the Helgafell monastery (Ólafur Halldórsson 1966, 22, 27–29; see also Jón
Helgason 1958, 67, 69–70). Jórunn moved north around 1630 to marry her
second cousin Benedikt Halldórsson (1607–1688), whose parents man-
aged the monastery at Möðruvellir in Hörgárdalur. Jórunn later gave the
manuscript to her daughter Ingibjörg (d. 1673), who married Bishop Gísli
Þorláksson in 1664.11
Other manuscripts in Helga Magnúsdóttir’s childhood library belonged
to her parents Magnús and Guðrún. Sigurjón Páll Ísaksson’s list of manu-
scripts belonging to Magnús Björnsson contains ten manuscript items
(including Möðruvallabók) that can be linked with some certainty to
Magnús, three manuscript items that can be reasonably hypothesised to
have been Magnús’s and one instance of a lost manuscript that was proba-
bly borrowed from Magnús by Þorbergur Hrólfsson of Seyla (1573–1656),
although it is unknown whether it was a paper or vellum copy (Sigurjón
Páll Ísaksson 1994, 142–45).
One vellum manuscript belonging to Helga Magnúsdóttir, AM 152
fol., certainly had belonged to her father, as it contains a single-stanza
verse on f. 138v proclaiming Magnús Björnsson’s ownership, in addition
to his signature on f. 57r. It is likely that the now-lost copy of Þiðreks saga
af Bern that Árni Magnússon called Bræðratungubók also came from
Munkaþverá.
10 A vernacular book of postula sögur and a copy of Martinus saga were at the monastery at
Möðruvellir in Hörgárdalur when an inventory was made in 1461.
11 Guðrún Ingólfsdóttir (2016, 241) raises the interesting question of whether Jórunn
Hinriksdóttir could write. As she points out, a surviving legal document from 1688 is
signed by her tenants, but Jórunn’s name is not written in her own hand. However, Jórunn
would have been around seventy-four years old at the time. Before eye surgery was an
option, many older Icelanders had cataracts and other vision problems that prevented them
from writing, including some former scribes. Jórunn wrote Bishop Brynjólfur a letter that
he received in 1665; his response is preserved in AM 277 fol., 74v–77r. Her letter does not
survive, so it cannot be seen whether she dictated her letter or directly held the pen.