Gripla - 2023, Blaðsíða 215

“EYRSILFR DRUKKIT, ÞAT GERIR BANA” 213
black initials appear in the text. Additionally, at the points where most
new articles begin, scattered small, faint guide letters appear on the far
edges of the outer margins, clearly to indicate where initials should later
be placed, perhaps by a separate illuminator. These would have been cut
off if the manuscript had been trimmed. Where an initial is intended, the
corresponding letter is missing in the text itself. Most articles start at the
beginning of a new line, and a space is left blank where the previous article
ends. This results in many 20–40 mm long gaps at the end of the lines
where the articles end.
No slip accompanies the fragment, and there is no record, marginalia,
or other information regarding its provenance or how it came into the
hands of Árni Magnússon. However, the fragment is referred to in Jón
Ólafsson’s catalogue of the manuscripts in Árni Magnússon’s collection,
which dates from c. 1731.20 The manuscripts grouped under the shelf
mark AM 655 i–xxxiii 4to are all fragments, predominantly dating back
to the thirteenth century, with some among the oldest in the collection (c.
1200). Fragment 655 xxx is not the sole example in this group for which
Árni Magnússon omitted details regarding its acquisition. In the instances
where he did make such a record, he often notes that they were discovered
embedded within the bindings of other books, whether in the spine, act-
ing as a cover, or affixed to a cover.21 This may have been the fate of 655
xxx, given the folding marks on its vellum support, or it may have been
retrieved like one of the other fragments in the group, which was found
discarded in the trash at a farm.22 Such findings were characteristic of
Árni’s approach, which distinguished him from many other collectors, as
he meticulously pursued every vellum fragment, tear, and snippet, regard-
less of condition.23
The fragment is currently in a modern conservation binding, sewn
onto a guard and preserved in a cardboard cover, and bears no immediate
trace of its original binding. Kålund remarks (in 1894) that the leaves are
20 AM 477 fol., 44v (Catalogus Librorum Msstorum Arnæ Magnæi).
21 See Kålund, Katalog II, 58–67.
22 This is AM 655 V 4to; see ibid, 59.
23 On Árni’s methods, see, e.g., Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir, “Manuscripts on the Brain –
Árni Magnússon, Collector,” in 66 Manuscripts from the Arnamagnæan Collection, ed.
Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir, Matthew James Driscoll, and Sigurður Svavarsson (Copenhagen:
Arnamagnæan Institute, 2015).