70 THE KING'S MIRROR 



T. Flom, a photographic reproduction of this same man- 

 uscript, 243 B. This important linguistic monument 

 has thus been made accessible to scholars in its original 

 form. Professor Flom has also prepared the Old Norse 

 text of the manuscript, which makes a part of the pub- 

 lication, and has prefaced the whole with an extended 

 introduction in which he discusses the history of the 

 manuscript, marginal addenda, abbreviations, and other 

 paleographic and linguistic problems. 



Until very recently the Danish version prepared by 

 Jon Erichsen for the Soro edition was the only transla- 

 tion of the Speculum Regale into a modern language.* 

 But a few years ago the first part of the work was pub- 

 lished under the title Kongespegelen in the form of a 

 translation into New Norse, a language of recent origin 

 based on the spoken dialects of Norway. As these dia- 

 lects are closely related to the original idiom of the 

 North, such a translation can be made with comparative 

 ease. The work has recently been completed, and in 

 most respects the New Norse version proves to be a 

 very satisfactory translation. 



Some years ago a number of American scholars who 

 have interests in the fields of Scandinavian history, lan- 

 guage, and literature united to form a Society for the 

 Advancement of Scandinavian Study. The founders be- 

 lieved that the purpose of the organization might be in 

 part achieved by encouraging the publication of some 

 of the great Scandinavian classics in English transla- 

 tion. It was on the suggestion of this Society that the 



* In 1892 a small volume of extracts from the King's Mirror translated by 

 Chr. Dorph was published in Copenhagen. 



