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708 VON TROIL’S LETTERS ON ICELAND.
manutcript, its fize, &c. He is perfectly right in this point, and I will briefly endeav our
to repair this difficulty; but firft, I muft obferve a diplomatic defcription was not fo
much required in that letter, as I had directed my attention more to the contents of the
book than its external appearance.
I intended to fhew what was the view of the author of the Edda in compofing this
work, what parts belonged to,it, and which did not, wherein our manut{cript differed
from Refenius’s edition, whence the book had obtained the name of Eddee, &c. &c.
and its diplomatical defcriptions would have afforded no information in any of thefe
articles. ‘This letter was befides not addreffed to any foreign man of learning, but to
one of my learned countrymen, well verfed in ancient literature, who had frequently
had this manufcript in his own hands, and examined it, and was perhaps better ac-
quainted with it than myfelf. It would have been very fuperfluous to tell him, it was
written in ancient characters, in the Icelandic language, on parchment.
But to oblige Mr. Schloczer, and perhaps many others, I will inform them that this
codex, as I faid before, is written upon parchment, the colour of which is dark brown,
which may proceed partly from its old age, and partly perhaps from its having been
long kept, and made ufe of in the Icelandic f{mokey rooms. It is in yery good preferva-
tion, and in general legible. It is true, there are fome round holes in the parchment,
but thefe feem to have been there at firft, as no part of the text is loft by them. The
fize is a {mall quarto, one finger in thicknefs, containing fifty four leaves and a half, c:
one hundred and nine pages, befides a white leaf before, and one behind, on which there
are however fome bad figures, of which thefe on the firft reprefent Gangleri, with Her-
jafuhar and Thridi, who refolve queftions. The characters are old, and when compared
with many others, feem to prove that the copier lived about the beginning of the four-
teenth century : but all this is of very little importance. Mr. Schloczer believes his
fubfequent queftions may give more light in fettling the principal point, as they tend to
difcover who was the author of the Edda, and what really belongs to it.
He is therefore more curious to know what is contained in this codex. Mr. Schloczer
believes he has fo much more reafon for putting this queftion, as I myfelf have hinted,
that befides Demifagor, Koeninggar, and Liodfgreinir, it contained a lift of Icelandic
lagmen, and a /angfedgatal or genealogy of Sturlefon’s anceftors. He therefore defires
to know if this codex is not a magazine of all kinds of Icelandic works, which have been
accidentally collected into one volume, and bound together? I anfwer to this, if the
cafe were thus, Mr. Schloczer might have expected from a man who a¢ted with candour
and fome knowledge of the matter before him, that he would not have omitted this
circumftance. I therefore now declare that there is nothing elfe in it, but what has
already been mentioned ; unlefs I add, that p. 92 and 93, after the author has defcribed
the general rules of poetry, and the nature of letters, and the copier has left half a blank
page before he writes the names of all the different forts of verification ufed in the Ice-
landic poetry, another hand has patched in a fteganographical writing, of which I did
not know what to make during a long time, and indeed I did not take great pains to
decypher it.
1 will however give a fpecimen of it: dfxtfrb ferkptprks bfnfdkth Jkt pmnkbxs hprkse
As | was reading in Vanly’s Bibliotheca Anglo Saxonica, I accidentally met with a fimi-
lar collection of confonants, with a key affixed to it, which fhewed that the whole fecret
confifted in placing, inftead of each vowel, that confonant which in the alphabet followed
next to it; alfo inftead. of a, ¢, 7,0, u, y, the letters b, fk, p, x, % Were put; and ac-
cording to this rule the afore-mentioned riddle fignified, Dextera {eriptoris beneditta fit
omnibus horis.
6 I afterwards
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