Akrabók

Handrit að Eddum með hendi Árna Böðvarssonar á Ökrum og hugleiðingar um handritarannsóknir á Eddunum

Abstract

In the spring of 2003 the Árni Magnússon Institute received as a gift from Örn Arnar, medical doctor in the United States, an 18th-century manuscript which the Institute had got in Israel. The manuscript is in the hand of Árni Böðvarson of Akrar in the Mýrar district. It is known that this manuscript was in the western part of Iceland during the early 19th century, and on the west coast of the United States at the end of that century. The article gives an account of the scribe, a prolific rímur-poet who was the first such poet to have these secular poems issued in print. The article then gives a detailed description of the contents of the manuscript, which include the Snorra Edda in the version of Magnús Ólafsson of Laufás, lays from the Poetic Edda — together with other eddic poems — and some smaller items.