The Devil'S Bible

The Royal Palace of Stockholm, Sweden, is one of the most notable of its class in Europe. The Royal Library contains 200,000 volumes and 10,000 manuscripts. Here is the so-called "Devil's Bible." It is a huge copy of the Bible written on three hundred prepared asses' skins. One tradition declares that it took five hundred years (from the eighth to the thirteenth century) to make this copy, which is so large that it has a table to itself. Another tradition affirms that the work was done in a single night, owing to the assistance of his Satanic majesty, who, when the work was completed, gave the monk a portrait of himself for a frontispiece, and, amid illuminated incantations, it is still to be seen; hence the name of this copy. This marvelous MS. Was carried off by the Swedes during the "Thirty Years' War" from a convent in Prague. Another famous MS. is the Codex Aureus, a copy of the Gospels, in Gothic letters of gold and purple, upon parchment. Annotations upon it, dated Milan 840 A. D., speak of its being even then very ancient. There is some evidence of its having once belonged to the Cathedral of Canterbury, England.