The Icelandic Manuscript consists of approximately 200 individual, handwritten pages.  The pages have been bound together inside in brown, leather binding with wooden boards.  There is also calligraphy at the beginning of each section.

Personnel at the Chester Fritz Library and the UND Languages Department worked with Dr. Merrill Kaplan of The Ohio State University to gather information towards a partial translation of several pages in the manuscript.  Dr. Kaplan reported that the manuscript appears to be several different long-form rhyming poems, as well as an obituary in verse.  The owners/creators of the manuscript were noted as J. Magnusson and, later, Sveinn Einarsson.

Dr. Kaplan identified the work of two Icelandic poets, Árni Böðvarsson (1713-1776) and Hans Natansson, as being copied into in the manuscript.  Also included is an obituary for Sigurbjörg Jónsdóttir, copied from the Norðanfari newspaper, vol3, number 26-27, page 58, November 1864.