but, according to the editors of the printed text, the facts are that the manuscript was owned in the west of Iceland as far back as we possess any knowledge of it, and there is no positive evidence where it was written[1] We have, indeed, no further particulars concerning the manuscript before the seventeenth century, when we find that it was in the possession of John Finsson [J on Finsson], who dwelt in Flatey in Breidafirth [Brei^afjörSr], as had his father, and his father's father before him. That the book had been a family heirloom is evident from an entry made in the manuscript by this same John Finsson:
'This book I, John Finsson, own; the gift of my deceased father's father, John Biarnsson[2],' &c.
From John Finsson the book descended to his nephew, John Torfason[3] from whom that worthy bibliophile. Bishop Bryniolf of Skálholt, sought, in vain, to purchase it, as is related in an anecdote in the bishop's biography:
'Farmer John of Flate}', son of the Rev. Torfi Finsson, owned a large and massive parchment-book in ancient monachal writing, containing sagas of the Kings of Norway, and many others; and it is, therefore, commonly called Flatey Book[4]. This, Bishop Bryniolf endeavoured to purchase, first for money, and then for five hundreds of land. But he, nevertheless, failed to obtain it; however, when John bore him company, as he was leaving the island, he presented him the book; and it is said, that the Bishop rewarded him liberally for it[5]'
The Flatey Book was among a collection of vellum manuscripts intrusted to the care of Thormod Torfæus, in 1662, as a present from Bishop Br3'niolf to King Frederick the Third of Denmark, and thus luckily escaped the fate of others of the bishop's literary treasures. In the Roj-al Library of Copenhagen it has ever since remained, where it is known as No. 1005, fol. of the Old Roj-al Collection.
Interpolated in the Saga of Olaf Tryggvason in the Flatey Book are two minor historical narratives. The first of these, in the order in which they appear in the manuscript, is called, a Short Story of Eric the Red [Þáttr Eireks Rau>a], the second, a Short Story of the Greenlanders [Grœnlendinga íÞáttr]. Although these short histories are not connected in any way in the manuscript, being indeed separated by over fifty columns of extraneous historical matter, they form, if brought together,
- ↑ Cf. Flateyjarbók, Fortale, ubi sup. p. vi. John Ilaconsson appears to have lived at one time in the north of Iceland at Víðidalstunga (cf. Safn til'sögu Islands, Copenh. 1861, vol. ii. p. 77), which in some measure may tend to confirm the view that the book originated in the north of Iceland.
- ↑ Ibid. p. iii.
- ↑ Cf. VigfusBon, Icelandic Sagas, ubi sup. vol. i. p. xxx.
- ↑ That is from Flatey [Flat Island], the home of the owners of the book.
- ↑ Cf. Vigfusson, 'Prolegomena' in Siuriunga Saga, Oxford, 1878, vol. i. p. cxliii, note i.
