The Codex Wormianus or AM 242 fol. is an Icelandic

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 ...

codex The codex (: codices ) was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term ''codex'' is now r ...

dating from the mid-14th century. It contains an edition of the

Prose Edda The ''Prose Edda'', also known as the ''Younger Edda'', ''Snorri's Edda'' () or, historically, simply as ''Edda'', is an Old Norse textbook written in Iceland during the early 13th century. The work is often considered to have been to some exten ...

and some additional material on poetics, including the

First Grammatical Treatise The First Grammatical Treatise (, roughly: "first language studies writ act") is a 12th-century work on the phonology of the Old Norse or Old Icelandic language. It was given this name because it is the first of four grammatical works bound in the ...

. It is the only manuscript to preserve the

Rígsþula ''Rígsþula'' or ''Rígsmál'' (Old Norse: 'The Lay of Ríg') is an Eddic poem, preserved in the Codex Wormianus (AM 242 fol), in which a Norse god named Ríg or Rígr, described as "old and wise, mighty and strong", fathers the social class ...

. The manuscript is believed to have been written in the

Benedictine The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

monastery Þingeyraklaustur in Þingeyrar in northern

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 ...

around 1350. It was obtained by the runologist Ole Worm from the Icelandic scholar Arngrímur Jónsson in 1628, according to an inscription on the first page of the work. In 1706, Árni Magnússon obtained the document from Ole Worm's nephew, Christian Worm. Today it remains part of the Arnamagnæan Manuscript Collection at the Arnamagnæan Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark. The scribe who wrote Codex Wormianus worked on a number of manuscripts, including the '' Stjórn'' codex AM 227 fol.

References

External links

Online facsimile of AM 242 fol.
by the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen (, KU) is a public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia, after Uppsala University. ...

.
Text version
by the Medieval Nordic Text Archive.

to Snorri's Edda from Codex Wormianus. Old Norse literature Old Norse prose Icelandic manuscripts {{iceland-stub