Árbók Landsbókasafns Íslands - Nýr flokkur - 01.01.1991, Page 81

GEORGE WEBBE DASENT
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rather a long letter but it can’t be helped & you must bear with it as
I want for the sake of Iceland as well as for my own to make this
edition of the saga credi[t to us all].
Nov 1 [? 1859]... I think we had better say no more about the
facsimiles except that I wish to say that I was not aware that I was
treating you like Jews or not trusting you. If you don’t care about
our English people thinking Icelandic MS poor in execution it is
your own aífair, certainly not ours. You miglit have spared too
your outbreak about the persons with whom I am accustomed to
deal. I am accustomed to deal as a gentleman & with gentlemen &
with no othcrs. I suppose it is quite as much the interest of Iceland
& Icelanders that this edition of the Orkney Saga should be a good
one as it is of mine and I expect all the assistance of Icelanders that
I can liave. When trouble is given I am not aware that I am
unwilling to pay for it, & as you throw the extracts16 from Njal in
my teeth, I shall be obliged by your fixing a price on those extracts
at once. I will not have them as a gift. I am very sorry that I did not
have the facsimiles done here as it would have saved all this
unpleasantness... I have received a very sensible letter from Mr
Vigfússon who is fortunately in a better temper than you seem to
be - when you next write I hope your bad fit will be passed oíf. All
here send regards. Thanks for the Biskupa Sögur.
Dec 27th [18]59. Day after day I have been expecting to be able
to send you another batch of proof sheets for Mr Vigfússon & a
number of sheets worked off.17 Things have gone much more
slowly in these respects than I could wish, & so, though the slips &
proofs will be ready in a day or two, I have seized a leisure moment
to write before they go instead of with them. In the first place as
the Orkney & Magnus Saga will with Index appendix etc fil! two
volumes I think there is an opportunity for a 3rd Facsimile18 which
16. The precise allusion here is not clear, but it may well be that up to this point, Dasent had
been consulting Grímur and Guðbrandur about points of translation and interpretation
from Njála and oflering them no payment, whereas terms for proof-reading the Orkneyinga
saga text had been agreed.
17. Proofs of the printed but unpublished Orkneyinga saga text of 1859. See also July 15
1858 letter above, in which the sort of proof reading required by Dasent is identified.
18. The two black and white facsimiles on thick paper appeared eventually in Orkneyinga
saga (Rolls Series, London, 1887), between pp.xxxvi-xxxvii, and are suflicientiy unimpres-
sive to justify Dasent’s irritated reaction in Oct.ll f?1859] letter. The much better third
facsimile which appears as a frontispiece to the same volume is indeed as „handsome" a
page as Flateyarbók oflers (columns 310-11).
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