THE AMERICAN-SCA N D IN A VIA N REV IE IV 
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or in Danish abroad and everything published by foreign authors on 
Denmark or Danish conditions is purchased for the department. 
There is no other place in the world where everything pertaining to 
Denmark can be studied from such comprehensive material as here. 
All in all, the library contains about three quarters of a million 
books and about twenty thousand manuscripts. Among the latter 
the first place is occupied by the Old Norse manuscripts. One of the 
greatest treasures of the library is the so-called Codex Regius, written 
in Iceland about the year 1270 and containing that collection of the 
oldest Norse mythological and heroic lays which we know under the 
title of the Elder Edda. The Codex Regius is without comparison 
the most important Icelandic manuscript in the library. Another 
great treasure is the Younger Edda written by the famous Icelander, 
Snorri Sturlason in the fourteenth century. A third manuscript, 
which has particular interest for Americans, is the so-called Flate- 
yarbok, written and illustrated between the years 1387 and 1394 by 
two Icelandic priests. It comprises two volumes of poems, legends, 
and genealogical tales, among which is found the old account of the 
discovery of Greenland and America by the Norsemen. The name 
Flateyarbok is derived from the fact that the manuscript was kept 
for a long time in the possession of a well known family on Flatey 
The Reading-room in the New Building 
