(Nordenfalk 1975, n. 15). Several pages before this double spread are written in yellow characters on a blackened parchment and have a very gloomy character, somewhat different from the rest of the codex. The reason for the variation in coloring is that the pages of the codex are of vellum. Vellum, or scraped and dried animal hide, "tans" when exposed to ultraviolet light. Over centuries, the pages that were most frequently turned have developed this tell-tale darker color. History According to legend, the Codex was created by Herman the Recluse in the Benedictine monastery of Podlažice near Chrudim in the Czech Republic. The monastery was destroyed some time in the 15th century during the Hussite Revolution. Records in the codex end in the year 1222. Shortly after it was written, it was pawned by the Benedictines to the Cistercian monks of the Sedlec Monastery, where it remained for 70 years. The Benedictine monastery in Břevnov reclaimed the bible around the end of the 13th Century. From 1477 to 1593, it was kept in the library of a monastery in Broumov until it was taken to Prague in 1594 to form a part of the collections of the Emperor Rudolf II. At the end of the Thirty Years' War in 1648, the entire collection was taken as war booty by the Swedish army. From 1649 to 2007, the manuscript was kept in the Swedish Royal Library in Stockholm. The site of its creation is marked by a maquette in the town museum of Chrast. On 7 May 1697, a fire broke out at the Tre Kronor royal castle in Stockholm, which destroyed much of the Royal Library. The Codex Gigas was thrown out of a window; according to the vicar Johann Erichsons, who wrote 50 years after the fire, it landed on and injured a bystander. In September 2007, after 359 years, the Codex Gigas returned to Prague on loan from Sweden until January 2008, and was on display at the National Library of the Czech Republic. A National Geographic documentary included interviews with manuscript experts who argued that certain evidence (handwriting analysis and a credit to Hermann Inclusus – "Herman the Recluse") indicates the manuscript was the work of a single scribe. Content The first page has two Hebrew alphabets. There are also added slips with Early Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets (Folio 1). About half of the codex (f. 1–118)