Reykjavík Grapevine - aug 2023, Qupperneq 10

The Reykjavík Grapevine 12 / 23 10
WORDS Iryna Zubenko
IMAGE Art Bicnick
There are very few
things that can help us look back at
history better than an old book. How
was it made? Who owned it? How
long did it take them to handwrite
these letters? While Eyþór Guð-
mundsson’s day-to-day job may not
reveal his hidden passion, his home
office certainly does – Eyþór finds,
collects and restores old books.
With a personal collection spanning
several hundred volumes, Eyþór
gives us a glimpse into the restora-
tion process – it isn’t as straightfor-
ward as you might think.
I’m a security specialist and close
protection officer by profession. I
have been working in this field for
almost 20 years. I first got interested
in old books as a child. I grew up on
a farm in Borgarfjörður, where two or
three hundred years ago, there was
a printing press. After learning about
that I got interested in old books.
When I started collecting old books, I
thought it was useless to only collect
them – put them on a shelf and let
them collect dust. I learned on my
own how to restore and protect them.
By reading books, watching You-
Tube videos, talking to people with
more experience, asking questions,
practising a lot and making my own
books, I got kind of good at it.
ANTIQUE BOOK HUNT
There are two companies in Iceland
that specialise in antiquarian books.
One is Bókin on Hverfisgata where
two specialists, Ari and Eiríkur, work.
The other is Bókakaffið on Ármúli,
where Bjarni and Jóhannes offer re-
ally good consulting about old books.
After doing this for many years, peo-
ple are now contacting me on their
own – that’s how I find and restore
old books. There are a lot of old
Icelandic books all around Iceland,
many thousands probably. I just hav-
en’t found them all, yet.
I prefer to collect old Icelandic books
from the early 1900s and older,
especially, from the old Icelandic
printing locations, like Hólar, Skálholt,
Hrappsey, Leirárgarðar, Beitistaðir
and, of course, from Viðey. I actually
grew up in Beitistaðir. Books from
Leirárgarðar and Beitistaðir are the
most rare books that you can find in
Iceland. That’s what I specialise in
today. The books that were printed
there were mostly non-religious, pri-
marily handbooks for farmers.
BIBLICAL TREASURES
I have a lot of Bibles in my collection.
The mission of many book collectors
in Iceland is to collect the oldest Bi-
bles, like Guðbrandur’s Bible, Steinn’s
Bible or Þorlákur’s Bible. I don’t look
at those books. I collect other old
Icelandic Bibles and I also have a lot
of foreign Bibles. The oldest book
that I have is an English Bible, printed
in 1595. I have Bibles printed on Viðey
and in Reykjavík. There were 1400
books of that type printed in Viðey
and I have seven of them. My mission
is to restore them all. But it takes a
long time to restore one 1400-page
Bible because you have to take it
page by page, wash each page in
water, and then dry them. When I
did that, it took me eight days, eight
hours a day.
BRINGING BOOKS BACK TO
LIFE
When I find a book that is maybe 300
or 400 years old, it’s not always in the
best shape.
The first step in the restoration
process is pouring water over the
pages or washing the pages. This
is good for the pages because the
pages from the old days are about
80% cotton. Pouring water on them
helps to clean the paper. The cotton
is restoring itself, and the pages will
be much stronger after the cleaning
process. The water that I use can be
warm. It won’t affect the pages in any
way other than restoring them.
The next step is to dry the pages and
proceed with the restoration pro-
cess. When I’m restoring torn pages,
I have to glue them with a special
Japanese paper that is really thin.
This will prevent the pages from tear-
ing further. I take a little bit of glue
and put the Japanese paper on top.
The glue that I use is a special book-
binding glue with no acid. Everything
that we use in old book restoration
has to be acid-free. Every time I work
with a book, I have to clean my hands
thoroughly with soap to wash away
any acid residue.
Then I bind the book together. I
wouldn’t say it looks like new, but
almost. How long it takes to restore
depends on each book. If it’s not in
a bad condition, it might sometimes
take one day. When I’m restoring a
book, I want to do as much as I can,
but also as little as possible. I want to
have it as close to its original condi-
tion as possible.
UNEXPECTED FINDS
I found pieces of skin in a book I was
restoring, and these fragments are
likely around 500-600 years old. We
don’t actually know what they say
but it looks like they are rhymes. It’s
written in Old Icelandic, or Old Norse.
In the same book, I also found a re-
script from the old Icelandic lawbook
named Jónsbók. The letters are so
beautiful. It’s hard for me to read it
but I can understand a few words.
There’s one book I got in the middle
of COVID – an Icelandic book from
1837. The reason I bought this book
was because of the cover, which was
quite unique. While going through the
book, I came across a letter that had
been laying in the book since 1907.
You can see the name of the person
who wrote the letter and the place
where he lived. It’s really common
to come across letters like this in
books. Often, I can’t resist and have
to track the book to find out who
owned it 100-300 years ago.
In that particular letter, the person
was asking people not to come by
his farm as a measles outbreak was
going through Iceland. Opening this
book and finding this letter in the
middle of COVID was a pretty spe-
cial thing. One hundred years ago,
the person who wrote this letter
was actually talking about a similar
situation.
TOO MANY BOOKS
I don’t sell the books that I collect
and today I only have a few books
that I’m restoring for others. Collect-
ing old Icelandic books and restoring
them is a kind of a rescue mission
that I’m on. It’s a time-consuming
hobby. There are many books that I
haven’t started with yet – if it’s going
to take me eight hours a day, it might
take me a lifetime.
Follow Eyþór’s rescue mission on
Instagram: @oldicelandicbooks
Follow our YouTube channel to see
his book restoration process in
more detail: @rvkgrapevine
Islanders An Old Book Collector On A Rescue
Mission
Did you know that to restore old books, they are submerged in water?
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