Introduction to Viking Sagas by Arthur Middleton Reeves
Introduction to Viking Sagas by Arthur Middleton Reeves
Viking Sagas
by Arthur Middleton Reeves (1890)
Wikisource
The Flatey Book [Flateyjarbók] is the most extensive and most perfect of Icelandic manuscripts. It is in itself a comprehensive historical library of the era with which it deals, and so considerable are its contents, that they fill upwards of 1700 large octavo pages of printed text[1]. On the title-page of the manuscript[2] we are informed, that it belonged originally to John Haconsson [Jon Hákonarson], for whom it was written by the priests John Thordsson [Jon Þóri^arson] and Magnus Thorhallsson [Magnus Þórhallsson]. We have no information concerning the date when the book was commenced by John Thordsson; but the most important portion of the work appears to have been completed in the year 1387[3], although additions were made to the body of the work by one of the original scribes[4], and the annals, appended to the book, brought down to the year 1394. Toward the close of the fifteenth century, the then owner of the book, whose name is unknown, inserted three quaternions of additional historical matter in the manuscript[5], to fill a hiatus in the historical sequence of the work, not, however, in that part of the manuscript which treats of Wineland.
It has been conjectured that the manuscript was written in the north of Iceland[6], 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[7] 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[8],’ &c.
From John Finsson the book descended to his nephew, John Torfason[9] 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[10]. 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[11]‘
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 Ki