Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.2007, Qupperneq 174

i44
Reproduction of Kringla
S verris saga from Flateyjarbok, is that of Åsgeir Jonsson. On the bind-
ing there is the blind impression “1687”. However, this manuscript also
contains text which can hardly have been written in Norway, namely a
transcript of part of “Vitlausa Egla”, a newly-composed saga from the
seventeenth century written on the model of the old Egils saga-, it was
therefore no doubt bound in Iceland.92
Arni Magnusson’s statement that a transcript of Kringla was sent to
magistrate (logmadur) Oddur SigurSsson and that it was bound in Nor-
way may be correct, even if the identification with the text of Kringla
in 521 is upheld. The book, or at least part of it, may have had a differ-
ent binding when it was sent to Iceland. It may be that the Icelandic
owner possessed the different parts separately but wished to compile
them into a continuous text of Heimskringla. He therefore took the
first part out of its Norwegian binding and bound it together with the
other parts. It is possible that Oddur may have had the book bound
in Skålholt; he refers personally to his kinship with Bishop bordur
borlåksson (1637—1697) in a letter to Arni Magnusson (Kålund 1920:
449). There is not much, however, to connect 521 with Oddur, and
other recipients can easily be imagined. If the bindings connect the
book to Skålholt, it seems relevant to think of the bishop himself. He
was interested in history, had close contact with Thormod, and also
helped him with source material (see KdlKatAM I: no. 130, AM 123
g fol). He had paid a visit to Stangeland in 1669 and one of his sons
visited Thormod in 1692 (Kålund 1916: 163). Furthermore, his son
Brynjolfur visited Thormod in December 1697, the same year that the
bishop died (Kålund 1916: 206).
The man who brought the manuscript from Iceland and gave it to
Unger must have been the officer Haagen Valdemar Mathiesen, born
92 On “Vitlausa Egla”, which is found in AM 163 rfol and elsewhere, see Finnur Jons-
son 1886—88: xxviii, Stefan Karlsson 1964: 9, Bjarni Einarsson 2001: xxxvin and
Chesnutt 2006: lvii.