Gripla - 2023, Page 259

THE LIBRARY AT BRÆÐRATUNGA 257
1. AM 152 fol.
Árni Magnússon obtained this late medieval vellum manuscript of 201
leaves directly from Helga’s grandson, Vigfús Guðbrandsson. Vigfús
received the book from his mother Elín, and it belonged to Helga
Magnúsdóttir before her. The book had earlier been the property of
Helga’s father Magnús Björnsson, whose ownership is solidified in a verse
in his praise added to f. 139v. According to a note added to the manuscript,
Árni Magnússon had previously been informed by Helga’s brother Björn
that she had inherited a vellum copy of Grettis saga, which is the first text
in this manuscript. Given that this book was part of her inheritance, she
would have brought it to Bræðratunga either following her father’s death
in 1662 or her mother’s in 1671.
Stefán Karlsson (1970, 138) dated the manuscript to the first quar-
ter of the sixteenth century. It preserves a total of eleven sagas copied
by two scribes, who have been identified as the lay scribe Þorsteinn
Þorleifsson of Svignaskarð (half-brother to the wealthy Björn Þorleifsson
of Reykjahólar of the Skarðverjar family, who died after 1548) and the
priest Jón Þorgilsson.19 Jón Helgason believed that Björn’s great-grandfa-
ther Ari Jónsson had owned the manuscript, based on additions from 1545
(Jón Helgason 1958, 74–75). If this is correct, the codex could have been a
family heirloom, although it should also be noted that Magnús Björnsson
acquired an ancestral copy of Jónsbók that had passed out of the family (see
below).
2. *Bræðratungubók
*Bræðratungubók is the name given to a lost codex identified in Árni
Magnússon’s catalogue of vellum manuscripts as a quarto copy of
Þiðreks saga af Bern. According to Árni Magnússon’s notes, he acquired
*Bræðratungubók from fellow scholar Þormóður Torfason (1636–1719),
who received the book from Helga Magnúsdóttir (AM 435 a 4to, 142v–
143r). Vigfús Hákonarson, Helga’s son, visited Þormóður at his home in
Norway in 1670 and delivered the volume. Þormóður was an appropriate
recipient, given that he held the position of royal antiquary for Iceland
from 1667. The gift established an advantageous connection between the
19 For a detailed study of AM 152 fol., see Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir
2014b.