Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1970, Page 249

Pví flýgur krákan víða
257
Hev ‘ki anten liv hell’ ánd,
fer báSe lánd og stránd
og ger kvor mann rett kaup.
Ráðningin á ]aessari gátu er ‘ei vegt (en Bismer)’. Pessi gáta
er bersýnileg skyld nr. 1 og e. t. v. rytjur af henni, sem
margra alda munnleg geymd hefur látið eftir sig.
Handritastofnun íslands
Reykjavík
Meðan eg var að fást við pessa ritgerð ræddii eg við ýmsa menn um
J>au atriði sem voru orðugust viðfangs. Serstaklega stend eg í pakkarskuld
við dr. Kristján Eldjárn, Helga Guðmundsson, Jón Samsonarson, Lúðvík
Kristjánsson og Stefán Karlsson.
Ó. H.
SUMMARY
In the Arnamagnean Collection in Copenhagen there are two vellum
leaves, AM 687b 4to, the remnants of a book of song (free organum
for 2 and 3 voices). The manuscript is written by an Icelander. Its first
known owner was Porleifur Bjornsson, minister at Reykhólar (16th
century). Fol. lv—2v contain scores, but on Fol. lr there are eight riddles,
three verses and one Pula (fragment?), written in the 16th century. These
rhymes are printed here in orthography of the manuscript, but riddles nr.
1—7 have previously been printed (inexactly) from a copy by Hallgrímur
Scheving (JS 289 8vo) in tslenzkar gátur (Icelandic Riddles), collected
by Jón Árnason, Copenhagen 1887, and riddle nr. 4 also in Almanak hins
íslenzka pjóðvinafelags 1876.
It is clear from errors owing to misreadings that the writer of 687b
has copied the riddles from a book, and from the beginnings of nr. 6:
Hverr er sá inn priði (Who is the third one), nr. 7: Hverr er sá inn ellefti
(Who is the eleventh one) and nr. 8: Mggr er sá inn nítiándi (The nine-
teenth is a son) it may be deduced that they come from a collection of
riddles. The riddles are in the Ijóðaháttr metre but the lines are unusually
long and all the stanzas are more than 6 lines (9, 12 and 15). They
contain a few words that are either rare or otherwise unknown in Ice-
landic and a few with unusual meanings: 2.9 rauf, fem. ó-stem, used to
mean the same as Da. røv, Sw. róv. — 2.10 hjassi, masc. an-stem, meaning