Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1960, Page 153

On the Origin of Two Icelandic Manuscripts in the
Royal Library in Copenhagen.
By D. Slay.
In the Old Royal Collection in the Royal Library in Copenhagen
there is a pair of rather impressive seventeenth century Icelandic
manuscripts, GI. kgl. sml. 1002-3, fol., the origin of which is not
entirely known.
The manuscripts are uniform in appearance and are written
throughout in one hånd only; they form a very handsome pair, a
fine gift to the king. They are of thick, stiff parchment, and being
of the second half of the 17th century they must be among the last
examples of parchment manuscripts. Paper came into use in Iceland
for copying sagas c. 1620-30, after having been in some use for other
purposes for a considerable time.
The manuscripts are large both in size of page and number of
folios. The first is approximately 30x24.5 cm. and has 166 leaves;
the second is approximately 30.5x24 cm. and has 144 leaves; and
the thickness of the parchment makes them very bulky. But it is
not their size that makes them such fine volumes, but their bin-
dings, which are of red velvet, and the gilding of the edges of the
pages. The texts, too, are set out well on the page, in two columns,
with titles, chapter numbers and ornamental initials.
Each manuscript contains a kind of title page, from which one
might expect to get information about the origin of the manuscripts,
but a determined attempt has been made to erase the writing on
the whole of the title page of 1002, and that on the lower half of
the first page of 1003. The erasing was done by rubbing with some-
thing hard, perhaps a piece of pumice, with a liquid to loosen the
ink. It is possible that something more than water was used, for in
places the parchment has a curious near-transparency, though it is
not appreciably thinner at such places.