64 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 59 



accords with these miscellaneous ancient data and the traditions 

 embalmed by them. It so happens that there are three versions, two 

 being so nearly identical that each of them fits the above items and 

 differing only in minor details and special modes of statement: 

 whereas the third, that of the Flateybook, though preserving many of 

 these features, differs radically in others and adds a great number 

 which are inconsistent therewith or inherently improbable and have 

 no corroboration whatever. 



9. THE THREE SAGAS AND THEIR RELATIVE STATUS 



The three extant sagas of Greenland colonization and Wineland 

 discovery and exploration are very old manuscript copies on vellum, 

 all the original documents being lost as in other and even more 

 important cases, where we must rely on secondary evidence for all 

 that we believe of the past. Two of these sagas occur in compilations 

 Hauksbook and the Flateybook already mentioned such as were 

 often made for monasteries or prominent men, desiring to preserve 

 in convenient form the literature or records which they valued. Mis- 

 cellaneous matter therefore accompanies the sagas : Hauksbook, for 

 example, having contained the Landnamabook and the Kristni-Saga, 

 which Bishop Bryniolf separated for convenience in recopying, 

 though they at last reached the same (Arne Magnean) collection. A 

 few pages were lost in this disintegrating process, but these do not 

 affect the Wineland narrative, which has always remained in the 

 body of the book. 



A. M. Reeves in The Finding of Wineland the Good has carefully 

 worked out and authenticated all that is known of the history of the 

 three sagas. Hauksbook, it appears, was copied for and partly by 

 Hauk Erlandsson, a descendant of Snorri, the Winelander, son of 

 Gudrid and Thorfinn ; Hauk being also a well known personage of his 

 time, a lawman in Iceland, as well as a knight and lawman of Norway, 

 where he died in 1334. The work on this compilation is supposed to 

 have begun much earlier and was probably completed at latest in 1332 

 during his last visit to Iceland. Hauk wrote in person the final 

 passage of the saga, bringing the list of Snorri's descendants down 

 to his own time and including himself by name and title (herra, 

 acquired in 1305) ; also he copied about half of page 99 and two lines 

 of p'age 100, his handwriting being well known and exemplified by 

 a still extant letter. The remainder of the saga was copied by two 

 assistants, known as his first and second Icelandic secretaries, the ink, 

 penmanship, and orthography changing as they replace each other 



