__NOTOC__ Möðruvallabók () or AM 132 fol is an

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

from the mid-14th century, inscribed on

vellum Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. It is often distinguished from parchment, either by being made from calfskin (rather than the skin of other animals), or simply by being of a higher quality. Vellu ...

. It contains the following

Icelandic sagas The sagas of Icelanders (, ), also known as family sagas, are a subgenre, or text group, of Icelandic sagas. They are prose narratives primarily based on historical events that mostly took place in Iceland in the ninth, tenth, and early elev ...

in this order: *''

Njáls saga ''Njáls saga'' ( ), also ''Njála'' ( ), or ''Brennu-Njáls saga'' ( ) (Which can be translated as ''The Story of Burnt Njáll'', or ''The Saga of Njáll the Burner''), is a thirteenth-century Icelandic saga that describes events between 960 a ...

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Egils saga ''Egill's Saga'' or ''Egil's saga'' ( ; ) is an Icelandic saga (family saga) on the lives of the clan of Egill Skallagrímsson (Anglicised as Egill Skallagrimsson), an Icelandic farmer, viking and skald. The saga spans the years c. 850–1000 ...

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Finnboga saga ramma Finnboga saga ramma () (The Saga of Finnbogi the Strong) is an Icelandic saga that recounts the life of Finnbogi rammi. The story takes place in Flateyjardalur in Suður-Þingeyjarsýsla and in other places in Iceland, as well as in Norway. The ...

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Bandamanna saga Bandamanna saga (Old Norse: ; Modern Icelandic: ) is one of the sagas of Icelanders. It is the only saga in this category that takes place exclusively after the adoption of Christianity in the year 1000. Manuscripts and dating The oldest survivin ...

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Kormáks saga ''Kormáks saga'' ( Old Norse pronunciation: , ) is one of the Icelanders' sagas. The saga was probably written during the first part of the 13th century. Though the saga is believed to have been among the earliest sagas composed, it is well pr ...

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Víga-Glúms saga ''Víga-Glúms saga'' (Modern Icelandic pronunciation: ) is one of the Sagas of Icelanders. It takes place mostly in and around Eyjafjörður in North Iceland, and recounts the life and fall of Glúmr Eyjólfsson, a powerful man whose nickname, '' ...

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Droplaugarsona saga Droplaugarsona saga () is one of the Icelanders' sagas, probably written in the 13th century. The saga takes place near Lagarfljót in the east of Iceland about 1000 AD. It tells the story of Grim (''Grímr'') and Helge (''Helgi''), sons of ...

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Ölkofra þáttr ''Ölkofra þáttr'' (also known as ''Ölkofra saga''), the "Tale of Ölkofri" or the "Tale of Ale-Hood", is a þáttr, a minor Old Norse prose genre related to the sagas of Icelanders. Preserved in the 14th-century manuscript known as ''Möðruva ...

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Hallfreðar saga ''Hallfreðar saga vandræðaskálds'' (, Old Norse pronunciation: ) is one of the sagas of Icelanders. The saga is preserved in several 14th-century manuscripts, including Möðruvallabók and Flateyjarbók, but there are significant differences b ...

'' *'' Laxdœla saga'' *''Bolla þáttr Bollasonar'' *''

Fóstbrœðra saga ''Fóstbrœðra saga'' () or ''The Saga of the Sworn Brothers'' is one of the sagas of Icelanders. It relates the deeds of the sworn brothers Þorgeir and Þormóðr in early 11th century Iceland and abroad. Þorgeir is a capable and insanely bra ...

'' Many of those sagas are preserved in fragments elsewhere but are only found in their full length in ''Möðruvallabók'', which contains the largest known single

repertoire Repertory or repertoire () is the list or set of works a person or company is accustomed to performing. Whether the English or French spelling is used has no bearing, but it was the French word, with an accent on the first e, , that first took ho ...

of Icelandic sagas of the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

. The manuscript takes its name from Möðruvellir , the

farm A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used fo ...

Eyjafjörður Eyjafjörður (, ''Island Fjord'') is one of the longest fjords in Iceland. It is located in the central north of the country. Situated by the fjord is the country's fourth most populous municipality, Akureyri. Physical geography The fjord is ...

where it was found.Sarah M. Anderson, "Introduction: 'og eru köld kvenna ráð'", ''Cold Counsel: The Women in Old Norse Literature and Myth'', ed. Sarah M Anderson and Karen Swenson, 2000, e-book ed. Hoboken, New Jersey: Taylor and Francis, 2013, , pp. xi–xv
p. xv, note 1
In 1628, Magnús Björnsson signed his name in it with the location. It was brought to

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

in 1684 by Magnús Björnsson's son Björn, who gifted it to

Thomas Bartholin Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the A ...

. Árni Magnússon acquired the manuscript in 1691 after Bartholin's death, and it was incorporated into the Arnamagnæan Collection. It was returned to

in 1974 after the collection's division into an Icelandic and a Danish section. Margaret Clunies Ross has asserted that the saga was arranged geographically, and Emily Lethbridge has shown that ''Njáls saga'' could have been treated as a separate text from the rest of the extant manuscript. The manuscript is bound with two pieces of oak wood, has 200 parchment pages, and is 33.5 x 22 cm. Parts of ''Njals saga'', ''Egils saga'', and ''Fóstbræðra saga'' are missing from it. Initially, the manuscript was at least 27 volumes long, with all volumes having eight pages except for the last one, which had possibly only six pages. In the early 1930s, a facsimile of it was published by Ejnar Munksgaard.

References

External links

Images of manuscripts at the Árni Magnússon Institute site
(Möðruvallabók is the second from the top in the list)
Best quality images at handrit.isText in Icelandic at the Árni Magnússon Institute site

*

References

External links

Further reading