Gripla - 2023, Blaðsíða 219
“EYRSILFR DRUKKIT, ÞAT GERIR BANA” 217
It consists of only twenty-seven lines, added c. 1370 to fols. 6v and 7r of a
manuscript which is almost two centuries older, the Old Norse translation
of Physiologus, next to a text about the elephant and a drawing of one.38
The lines are uneven and dense, the text flowing continuously, and the
scribe made good use of the space by extending the lines well beyond the
original text’s margins. The medical advice is selective. Most of it pertains
to various pains, such as headaches, and digestive problems, such as “Tak
urriðagall ok súrt vín ok ambra, allt saman, ok smyrr umhverfis kviðinn.
Þá batnar þat.” (Take bile from sea trout and sour wine and spermaceti, all
together, and apply it around the stomach. Then it will get better.)39 There
is also advice for scalp infection and intoxication. It may be speculated that
the owner of the manuscript had access to another medical manuscript
and wanted to make use of the empty space in Physiologus to copy down
selected advice that could benefit their own specific health conditions. The
provenance of the manuscript can be traced back only to the seventeenth
century, to the West fjords of Iceland.40 The text was edited by Marius
Hægstad and published with an introduction in Norwegian in 1913.41
AM 194 8vo is much larger, fifty-two leaves in total. It contains ency-
clopaedic material, spanning various sciences known at the time of writing.
The main scribe identifies himself as the priest Óláfr Ormsson and dates
his writing to the year 1387 at Geirrøðareyri (Narfeyri) in Snæfellsnes,
which is near the Augustinian monastery at Helgafell.42 The condition
of the manuscript is poor, and the text is illegible in many places.43 The
38 On 6v there is also a later addition of the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in Latin.
See manuscript details of AM 673 a I and II 4to on handrit.is, Icelandic Manuscript Catalog
with Digital Reproductions. National and University Library of Iceland, https://handrit.
is; Kålund, Katalog II, 90–91. On the dating of the medical text, see Marius Hægstad,
Eit stykke av ei austlandsk lækjebok fraa 14 hundradaaret, Kristiania Videnskapsselskaps
Forhandlinger, (Christiania [Oslo]: Jacob Dybwad, 1913), 8–9; ONP: Dictionary of Old
Norse Prose, Den Arnamagnæanske Kommission, http://onp.ku.dk/.
39 Hægstad, Eit stykke, 4. The normalisation of the text to Old Icelandic orthographic standard
is my own.
40 See Kristian Kålund, ed., Arne Magnussons i AM. 435 A–B, 4to indeholdte
håndskriftfortegnelser med to tillæg, udgivne af Kommissionen for det Arnamagnæanske legat
(Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1909), 15.
41 Hægstad, Eit stykke.
42 Kristian Kålund, ed., Alfræði íslenzk. Islandsk encyklopædisk litteratur, 3 vols., vol. I. Cod.
Mbr. AM. 194, 8vo (Copenhagen: Samfund til udgivelse af gammel nordisk litteratur,
1908), 54f.
43 A description of the manuscript is provided in Kålund, Alfræði íslenzk, i–iii.