58G RErORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1S91. 



biirg, and by I)i'. K. Cederschiold, of Lund, tSwedcii. Tho old Icelandic 

 literature also abounds in so-called Himur, or ballads, founded on 

 written stories. Many of these rimurs have not yet been published. 

 The most of the mythical sagas are published, collected in three 

 volumes, by Prof. 0. C. Rafn, Copenhagen.'' 



In 1891 William Morris and Eirikr Magnusson commenced in London, 

 under the name "The Saga Library," the publication of a collection of 

 sagas. At present two volumes have been issued, containing the fol- 

 lowing sagas: Vol.1. The Story of Howard tbe Halt; The Story of the 

 Banded Man ; The Story of Hen Thorir. Vol. ii. The Story of the Ere- 

 Dwellevs {Uyrby fjnj a Stuja) with the story of the Hcatii-Slayings (Hei^- 

 arwiga Saga). Of these the Sagas of the first volume are not mentioned 

 in the foregoing list. 



Of the story of Howard the Halt a fragment has been preserved in 

 its older and purer state in pages 145-147 of the Landuamabok. 



The story of the Banded Man {Bandamanna Saga) is the latest of the 

 independent Icelandic Sagas. According to the editors of the Saga 

 Library (VoL i, preface p. xxiii) "it has come down in two versions, 

 one evidently written in the north and the other in the west or south 

 of Iceland. The northern text is preserved in the Arnamaguican vellum 

 132 fob, which paliTeographers variously refer to the end of the thir- 

 teenth down to the middle of the fourteenth century, and was edited 

 by H. Fridriksson, at Copenhagen, in 1850. The western text is con- 

 tained in 2845f 4°, in the old collection of the Koyal Library at Copen- 

 hagen, dating from the beginning of the fifteenth century and was 

 edited by Clustav J. Chr. Cederschiold, Lund, 1874." 



The Story of the Heath-Slaying {Hei^arwiga *SVrr/rf), published in the 

 second volume of the Saga Library is pronounced the oldest of all Ice- 

 landic sagas. It is stated ' that it was purchased by the Koyal 

 Academy of Antiquities in Sweden in 1082, through the agency of the 

 Icelander Jon Eggertsson in an incomplete state,^ and that it now tbrms 

 part of the Royal Library at Stockholm. In 1722 Arni Magnussou 

 obtained the loan of the first twelve leaves. He had a copy made of 

 them but both original and coi)y were destroyed, in 1728, in the Copen- 

 hagen conflagration ; but his co])yist, Jon Olafsson, reproduced them 

 from memory. The best edition of tlie saga is that of Jon Sigurdsson, 

 in the volume of the Islendinga Sogur. 



These then are the records from which we obtain the knowledge 

 of the Northmen and of their naval architecture. 



Ships. — The name ship (.s7i-^^>) api)ears to have been given to any vessel 

 propelled by oars from benches or short seats ^ that did not extend from 

 board to board, but having a gangway between them'' through the 



'Morris and Ma,i>:nussoii : The Sa!>a Library, Vol. ii. London, 1892. Prelace p. 



XXV. 



^Cf. Sturlnuga i prolog, cxlvii. 

 »Flateyarl>6k, I, 390. ~ 

 ^Hciraskringla, p. 100. 



