Oct 3, 2026 · 1 hr 12 min · 24 segments
"Saga of the Greenlanders" is a captivating tale that delves into the lives of Norse settlers in Greenland, exploring their challenges, triumphs, and interactions with the indigenous peoples. This…
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 1,700 large octavo pages of printed text.
On the title page of the manuscript we are informed that it belonged originally to John Hakensen, for whom it was written by the priests John Tordsen and Magnus Torhalsen.
We have no information concerning the date when the book was commenced by John Tordsen, but the most important portion of the work appears to have been completed in the year 1387, although additions were made to the body of the work by one of the original scribes, and the annals appended to the books brought them down to the year 1394.
Toward the close of the 15th century, the then owner of the book, whose name is unknown, inserted three quaternions of additional historical matter in the manuscript, 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, 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.
We have indeed no further particulars concerning the manuscript before the 17th century, when we find that it was in the possession of John Finsen, who dwelt in Flotty in Bredaferth, 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 the same John Finsen.
This book I, John Finsen, own, the gift of my deceased father's father, John Bjarnson, etc.
This Bishop Brynulf endeavored 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.
The Flotty Book was among a collection of vellum manuscripts entrusted to the care of Tormod Torfias in 1662, as a present from Bishop Brynulf to King Frederick III of Denmark, and thus luckily escaped the fate of others of the Bishop's literary treasures.
In the Royal Library of Copenhagen it has ever since remained, where it is known as No. 1005, Folio of the Old Royal Collection.
Interpolated in the saga of Olaf Tryggvason in the Flotty 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.
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, what may be called the Flotty Book version of history of the Wineland discovery, a version which varies materially from the accounts of the discovery as they have been preserved elsewhere.
Before considering these points of difference, it may be stated that as we have no certain knowledge where the Flotty Book was written, neither have we any definite information concerning the original material from which the transcripts of these two narratives were made.
The original manuscripts of these narratives would appear to have shared a common fate with the other original forms from which the scribes of the Flotty Book compiled their work.
All of this vast congeries of early manuscripts has entirely disappeared.
This is the conclusion reached by that eminent authority, the late Dr. Vigfusson, whose profound knowledge of the written literature of the North was supplemented in the present instance by that close acquaintance which he had gained with the Flotty Book by reason of his having transcribed the entire manuscript for publication.
This total disappearance of all trace of the archetypes of the Flatey Book, although it is by no means the only case of the kind in the history of Icelandic paleography, is especially to be deplored in connection with the Wineland narrative, since it leaves us without a clue which might aid us in arriving at a solution of certain enigmas which this narrative presents.
In the Flatey Book version of the discovery, it is stated that Bjarni Herjolfsson, during a voyage from Iceland to Greenland, having been driven to the southward out of his course, came upon unknown lands.
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 1,700 large octavo pages of printed text.
On the title page of the manuscript we are informed that it belonged originally to John Hakensen, for whom it was written by the priests John Tordsen and Magnus Torhalsen.
We have no information concerning the date when the book was commenced by John Tordsen, but the most important portion of the work appears to have been completed in the year 1387, although additions were made to the body of the work by one of the original scribes, and the annals appended to the books brought them down to the year 1394.
Toward the close of the 15th century, the then owner of the book, whose name is unknown, inserted three quaternions of additional historical matter in the manuscript, 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, 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.
We have indeed no further particulars concerning the manuscript before the 17th century, when we find that it was in the possession of John Finsen, who dwelt in Flotty in Bredaferth, 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 the same John Finsen.
This book I, John Finsen, own, the gift of my deceased father's father, John Bjarnson, etc.
This Bishop Brynulf endeavored 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.
The Flotty Book was among a collection of vellum manuscripts entrusted to the care of Tormod Torfias in 1662, as a present from Bishop Brynulf to King Frederick III of Denmark, and thus luckily escaped the fate of others of the Bishop's literary treasures.
In the Royal Library of Copenhagen it has ever since remained, where it is known as No. 1005, Folio of the Old Royal Collection.
Interpolated in the saga of Olaf Tryggvason in the Flotty 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.
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, what may be called the Flotty Book version of history of the Wineland discovery, a version which varies materially from the accounts of the discovery as they have been preserved elsewhere.
Before considering these points of difference, it may be stated that as we have no certain knowledge where the Flotty Book was written, neither have we any definite information concerning the original material from which the transcripts of these two narratives were made.
The original manuscripts of these narratives would appear to have shared a common fate with the other original forms from which the scribes of the Flotty Book compiled their work.
All of this vast congeries of early manuscripts has entirely disappeared.
This is the conclusion reached by that eminent authority, the late Dr. Vigfusson, whose profound knowledge of the written literature of the North was supplemented in the present instance by that close acquaintance which he had gained with the Flotty Book by reason of his having transcribed the entire manuscript for publication.
This total disappearance of all trace of the archetypes of the Flatey Book, although it is by no means the only case of the kind in the history of Icelandic paleography, is especially to be deplored in connection with the Wineland narrative, since it leaves us without a clue which might aid us in arriving at a solution of certain enigmas which this narrative presents.
In the Flatey Book version of the discovery, it is stated that Bjarni Herjolfsson, during a voyage from Iceland to Greenland, having been driven to the southward out of his course, came upon unknown lands.
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