SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Saga-Book of the Viking Society
the lost material is in fact covered by what remains of
the vellum, and the remaining gap can be supplied by
another seventeenth-century manuscript (AM 426 fo1.)
which is a copy of the one made by Jon.
Jon's copy was once part of a larger codex containing
some thirteen sagas. It survived a loan to one of the
bailiffs at Skalholt," and eventually passed into the hands
of Bishop Bjorn I>orleifsson of Holar, to whom Ami
Magnusson, in r699, writes about it in urgent tones:
Visse eg bok i heimi sem Monfrere villdi hafa firir pessa ad
utvega, pa mundi eg frerast i alla auka til ad fa pa somu, pvi eg
villdi giarnan pessa eiga . . . 7
The other copy, made between r659 and r667, is likewise
part of a large compilation, distinguished chiefly by three
original paintings which preface it; one of Egill
Skalla-Grimsson, another of Grettir, and the third of
Gu6mundr Eyjolfsson. The book was assembled at the
instigation and expense of the well-known Magnus
Jonsson of Vigur on Isafjareardjup. On his death his
library passed to his son-in-law, Pall Vidalin, whose close
association with Ami Magnusson was no doubt responsible
for the safe arrival of the manuscript in Copenhagen.
We are still faced with the problem of the two sections
which disappeared from the vellum between the time of its
writing and the time of Jon Erlendsson's copy. No text
of theseparate A rons saga now exists from which these gaps
might be filled.
In the mid-fourteenth century, however, the author, or
compiler, of Guomundar saga byskups, had recourse to
Arons saga in putting his own work together, and it seems
very likely that he used the original Arons saga for his
purpose. His reason for referring to it at all was almost
certainly that it gave fuller information about the
Grimseyexpeditionof r222 andabout Aron's outlawry than
did his other main source, Sturla's lslendinga saga, and
• Jon Helgason, Ur Brefab6kum Brytlj6lfs Biskups Sueinssonar (1942), 194.
7 Arne Magnussons Private Brevveksling (1920), 566.