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at least as they could shed light on early Danish history. It was in this
connection that one of the great antiquarians of the period, Ole Worm
(1588–1655), came into contact with one of the first Icelanders to publish
historical works about Iceland for a wider audience, Arngrímur Jónsson
(1568–1648). the two men undertook a correspondence that ended only
with Arngrímur’s death in 1648.10 After establishing this context, I de-
scribe the manuscript itself, concentrating on the second part, which con-
tains a seventeenth-century copy of the Icelandic annals, tentatively dated
to about 1650 in the Beinecke catalogue.11 this copy was not known to
gustav Storm when he edited the medieval annals from Iceland in the late
nineteenth century and is not cited in his edition.
there are, however, excellent reasons for believing that the annals
preserved in Beinecke MS 508 are a copy of Icelandic annals made in the
north of Iceland and sent to Ole Worm by Arngrímur jónsson sometime
before 1641.12 Previous scholars believed that this manuscript was lost in
the library fire in Copenhagen in 1728,13 but it survived the fire, probably
because it had left Denmark.
one of the unique features of Beinecke MS 508 is the Latin transla-
tions in the margins of the annals text. In the final part of this article, I
analyze these translations and discuss why they were made, considering
why and for whom the manuscript was most likely produced. I further
argue that the translations offer an explanation for how this copy of the
annals survived and moreover came to be bound with the Anglo-Saxon
documents that now form the first half of the manuscript.
Ellen Jørgensen, Historieforskning og historieskrivning i Danmark indtil aar 1800, 3rd ed.
(Copenhagen: gyldendal, 1964), 117–60.
10 jakob Benediktsson’s introduction to Ole Worm’s Correspondence with Icelanders, ed. jakob
Benediktsson, Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana, vol. 7 (Copenhagen: Einar Munksgaard, 1948),
xvi–xxi.
11 Derolez, “Beinecke MS 508.”
12 We do not know precisely when Worm received the manuscript, but it was in his possess-
ion by 1641 when it is mentioned in a letter to Worm from Stephanius, Jakob, cf. Ole
Worm’s Correspondence, 357 (letter 39, 4 December, 1641).
13 Jakob Benediktsson believed, like Storm, that the manuscript was lost in the Copenhagen
fire; see Ole Worm’s Correspondence, 520 (n. 357, superscript 25). Anthony faulkes also
believed the manuscript was lost; see his introduction to Two Versions of Snorra Edda
from the 17th Century, vol. 2, Edda Islandorum; Völuspá, Hávamál; P.H. Resen’s Editions of
1665, ed. Anthony faulkes, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, rit, vol. 14 (reykjavík:
Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, 1977), 19.
BEInECKE MAnuSCrIPt 508