8th of December
Looks can be deceiving
(Click on the picture for a larger version)
Today's manuscript is another one of the most famous in our collection: AM 45 fol., also known as Codex Frisianus or Fríssbók, written in either Iceland or Norway in the early 14th century.
Here you see part of Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar, where Ólafur Tryggvasona goes to Trondheim to be proclaimed/accepted as king of Norway. The O initial is rather striking and the whole passage is beautifully written, but scribes were busy people and needed to fit a lot of text onto each page, so unless you know how to expand abbreviations, you'll have a very hard time following the story. We've added diplomatic and normalised versions of the text for your reading pleasure (click on the picture below).
You can read more about the contents of Codex Frisianus and leaf through the whole manuscript on Handrit.org
(Click on the picture for a larger version)
Contact
Katrín Þórdís Driscoll is a research assistant at the Dept. of Nordic Studies and Linguistics.
Phone: +45 3533 1660
katdris@hum.ku.dk
Anne Mette Hansen is asscociate professor at the Arnamagnæan Institute.
Telephone: +45 35 32 87 13
amh@hum.ku.dk