Brottskafnir stafir í Konungsbók Eddukvæða

Abstract

1. A considerable number of erasures occur in the manuscript of the Poetic Edda (Codex Regius). They are of two kinds: (a) Words and letters, already corrected by the scribe of the manuscript, have been erased as well as dittographs. (b) Other erasures. According to Ludvig Wimmer and Finnur Jónsson, they were made by an ignorant reader who indiscriminately deleted letters, syllables and words. It is not known when this was done. 2. Of the latter kind, (b), there are 29 erasures. More than half affect the 1 SI person clitic -k, alone or with a following negative suffix (see Table 1). In most of those cases, the 1SI person pronoun was also present. 3. A close examination of 11 cases of the negative suffixes -a and -at shows that the erasures were made by a thoughtful scholar with a particular interest in negations. Two of his corrections have even been adopted by some modern editors. 4. Several other erasures also make sense and in some cases it is possible to guess why they were made. 5. Arngrímur Brandsson (-1361) was abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Þingeyrar 1350-1357 and 1358- 1361. There are some reasons to suppose that the erasures are his work.