Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1970, Page 199

Ten Icelandic Exempla
and Their Middle English Source.
By Peter A. Jorgensen.
Four vellum leaves in the Arnamagnæan Collection in Copen-
hagen, previously unedited, have been found to contain rare pre-
Reformation translations from medieval English to Icelandic.1
They are included in two larger collections of miscellaneous vellum
fragments, usually one or two leaf remnants of hooks which have
been destroyed. The leaves discussed here, AM 238 XX fol. (here
called N) and AM 696 VII 4to (here called 0), owe their preserva-
tion to the faet that they were later used as book covers until
restored to manuscript status in the 18th century. Each fragment
consists of two conjoint leaves with rectangular pieces cut or
torn from each corner and a fold parallel to each side, 2 to 5 cm.
in from the edges. N was used to cover a book 15.5 by ca. 11 cm.,
while 0 protected a little booklet 9 by ca. 7 cm.
N was originally not the innermost folio in its gathering, for
the text at the end of lv is not continued on 2r. The outermost
pages (lr, 2v) are worn in spots, especially lr, which also contains
some dozen small, dark patches. There are small holes through
Ir2,3-lv3 and through lrll,12-lvl2,13. In the upper left corner
of lr, a dif ferent hånd (16th century?) has written what appears
to be two lines of verse in “hålfhnept” meter; the second line
“glogur feck hann svor snog” is clear, but the reading of the first
is problematic. In the right hånd margin of lr, a drawing (king
seated?) and some words run into the text, and the margins of 2v
contain some scarcely legible writing exercises. The number of
lines per page varies, being 31, 33, 32 and 34 respectively.
1 The time to work on these MSS. was made possible by a grant from the George
C. Marshall Memorial Fund in Denmark. To Prof. J6n Helgason go my deepest
thanks for his time, energy and countless helpful suggestions.
Opuscula IV. — 12