>Heill –ll
>
>I was wondering if anybody knows if there is an
>electronic text of Egils saga Skallagrimsson in OLD
>NORSE. I found one in Modern Icelandic but I want the
>damn thing in ON. Any help would be appriciated.
>
>Thanks Rob

There are several net sites that offer Egils saga,
as you will have noted. Some are in the USA, some
in Iceland and some in Norway.

Somehow I feel "netutgafan" (snerpa.is) is good, but
I have not really checked it out in all detail; it
is just a feeling I have. Then there is another site
that I used for a while, but when I went into the details
I found it was so full of typos that it was as good as useless.

Some of the typos were, I think, to be explained as an example
of mixing old norse with modern icelandic forms. That is why
I went to "snerpa" because I have a feeling that they are at least
sticking to some kind of standard, and not too many typos
either. But the other one was terrible! I tried to produce
a corrected version, but had to give up after some pages,
since there was almost more red ink than white paper after
a while.

Actually, it might be a good idea to get yourself a copy of
Islenzk fornrít, Egils saga, since that is probably the place
where you will find the Old Norse to be nearly 100% error-free.
I however, only have the "Sígildar sögur 2" (Reykjavík 1992)
which is modern Icelandic. But being a pocked edition with
lots of comments, I think it is nice.

"netutgafan" is also modern icelandic. But for me that is acceptable
as long as it is consistent and the forms correspond to lexical usage.

Perhaps it might be a good idea if we post part of the various
net versions to the list (e.g. Ch. 1: Ulfur het maður etc)
and give them a good scrutiny together.

Keth


PS When I look at the various Old Norse Edda editions, there exists
considerable variation. That is because the texts have come down to us
in several manuscripts that use different forms of spellings that
sometimes differ widely. There are then two kinds of editions:
Those that stick to original manuscript forms, and then those
that have "corrected" the manuscript spellings to a certain "standard"
that was created by scholars working in the 19th century.
For beginners it is probably the last kind that is most suitable,
since its forms correspond to the lexical forms that are used in
most of the extant Old Norse dictionaries. I have however not compared
the various Old Norse dictionaries too much either. Perhaps we
could look into that question as well, first perhaps by simply
making up a list of the various dictionaries that are known to exist.

Personally I don't care so much about spellings, as long as it is
semi-consistent. The original manuscript spellings have their own
charm, and I guess those are the ones I like best. But for course
work the "normalized" spelling is likely to work better.