Gripla - 20.12.2008, Blaðsíða 64

GRIPLA62
107v: No rubric (the first words are “Si prima feria fuerit”)•
This method of fortune-telling is recorded by Bede under the
name of Prognostica temporum. It is followed by other texts that
are half-illegible. The first of these is in Latin and is attributed
to Bede. The next item (which may possibly be two items) is
in Icelandic. The reading of this text is uncertain but it appears
to be a discussion of how the significance of dreams is affected
by the age of the moon. All these are in Hand 14 and were pos-
sibly copied down between 1306 and 1308.
Jón Helgason (1960, xxii, nt.15) speculated that the two Icelandic “sec-
retaries” were Bishop Árni Helgason and the priest who would have
accompanied him on his travels. They could have stayed with Haukr in
Bergen for a time, perhaps while waiting for a ship to Iceland, and at that
time they could have helped their host with the copying. Some support for
the assumption that the “first Icelandic secretary” worked in Norway can
be found in Eiríks saga rauða, where út hér is altered to a Islandi. Jón also
raised the possibility that although folios 1–14 (the first two quires) may
have been obtained from others and inserted into the manuscript, folios
15–21 are especially likely to have come from a different scriptorium, as
folios 15–18 are not only on thicker parchment than the other quires but
have almost no outer margin (Jón Helgason 1960, vi). It would appear that
these folios originally were in a larger format than their fellows and had to
be trimmed to fit into Hauksbók. Further support for this view is provided
by the rubrics, for although they were generally written by Haukr, even in
those parts of 544 that were otherwise written by other people, the rubrics
on folios 1–21 were written by someone else (Jón Helgason 1960, xxii).
AM 675 4to consists of two sequential quires of eight leaves each
and contains the beginning of Elucidarius, an Old Norse translation of
Honorius Augustodunensis’ Latin work on Christian cosmology. Haukr
had access to more of Elucidarius, inasmuch as Hand 2 copied excerpts of
it, but it is not known how much is missing here; it is probably one quire.
The text is in Hand 15. The orthography is irregular and mixed, but the
scribe was most likely Icelandic (Gunnar Harðarson and Stefán Karlsson
1993, 271). Jón Helgason (1960, vi) suggested that these quires, too, may
have been obtained from others and inserted into the manuscript. He dates