Gripla - 20.12.2014, Page 76

GRIPLA76
We may doubt that Ari ever wrote a book about “runic literature.”
given how interested Danish historians were in runes, they tended to see
them everywhere. Worm, for instance, was so certain that the early litera-
ture of the north was originally written in runes that he printed Icelandic
poetry in runic letters in his Runica, although there is no evidence that they
were originally written in this way.49
In sum, much evidence points towards Beinecke MS 508 as the manu-
script sent by Arngrímur to Ole Worm. the manuscript itself is identified
as annals sent by Arngrímur Jónsson, this identification matches with the
traces that Arngrímur’s annals left in other sources, and the translations in
the margins further point to Arngrímur as the sender of the manuscript,
and, hence, to Worm as its owner.
7. Latin in the Margins
In addition to helping us to identify the manuscript, the Latin marginal
translations also give insights into how early modern scholars were using
annals.
the Latin translations in Beinecke MS 508 were likely planned at the
time of copying. Although the pages are unruled, each page has a fold line
that creates a wide margin at the outer edge of each folio.50 It is in this
margin that the Latin translations appear. this framework implies that
the translations were planned from the start, especially since the manu-
script seems to have been a scholarly aid. Neither of the hands of the Latin
translation is probably Arngrímur’s. Comparison between a Latin letter
still preserved in Arngrímur’s own hand and dated 1641 in AM 1058 V 4to
and the hands in the margins of Beinecke MS 508 reveals important dif-
ferences, not least that the first hand in MS 508 appears far less practiced
than Arngrímur’s. the first hand in the annotations of MS 508 contains
a characteristic “g” (see Image 1) that is not found in Arngrímur’s own
hand. the second hand (which begins on fol. 35r, see Image 2), while more
practiced in appearance, has ascenders that loop to the right and a distinc-
49 Worm prints poems such as Hǫfuðlausn from Egils saga in runes, cf. his Runir, 227−40;
seaton, Literary Relations, 229.
50 Derolez, “Beinecke MS 508.”