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Paper short abstract

This poster compares the Icelandic Physiologus fragments AM 673 a I 4to and AM 673 a II 4to (c. 1190–1210) in order to examine how learned material about animals is integrated into vernacular narrative culture.

Paper long abstract

This poster compares the Icelandic Physiologus fragments AM 673 a I 4to and AM 673 a II 4to (c.

1190–1210) in order to examine how learned material about animals is integrated into vernacular

narrative culture. Transmitted from a Latin tradition but preserved in different Icelandic manuscript

contexts, the fragments offer an opportunity to observe how inherited representations of the natural

world are reshaped within local narrative forms.

A structural comparison reveals differences in how natural description, authority citation, and

allegorical interpretation are sequenced and emphasized within individual entries. AM 673 a II 4to

generally introduces animals through descriptive framing and reference to learned authority before

articulating their moral significance. AM 673 a I 4to more frequently foregrounds allegorical meaning

and presents comparatively compressed descriptive framing. These variations affect how animals and

hybrid beings are positioned within the narrative: as creatures described and interpreted, or as figures

already embedded in moral discourse.

By attending to such differences in narrative organization and emphasis, the poster approaches

vernacularization as a process of integration in which inherited material is translated and

recontextualized within Icelandic textual practice. The fragments thus illuminate how conceptions of

“nature” could be mediated, structured, and adapted within medieval narrative culture.