542 
THE AMERICAN-SCANDIN AVIAN REVIEW 
7 * 0 
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(flat island) off the coast 
of Iceland. This manu¬ 
script together with the 
two Eddas formed a part 
of the priceless collection 
of old hand-written parch¬ 
ments which the Icelandic 
bishop Brynjolfur Sveins- 
son sent as a gift to King 
Frederik III, who at once 
presented them to the li¬ 
brary. 
During the prepara¬ 
tions for the World’s Fair 
in Chicago, in 1893, a re¬ 
quest was made to the 
Danish govern m ent 
through the American 
diplomatic representative 
in Copenhagen for the 
loan of the Flateyarbok to 
the historical department 
at the Exposition. The 
Danish government was, 
however, unwilling to 
send this jewel of its col¬ 
lection across the sea, even 
though it was promised that every precaution should be observed; the 
manuscript was to be taken aboard an American war vessel; guard was 
to be kept over it on the journey from the Atlantic seaboard to Chicago 
and afterwards day and night at the Exposition; a Danish scholar was 
to accompany it and to have authority to demand any measure that 
seemed to him necessary for perfect safety. In spite of this, the Danish 
government thought the risk too great, and the managers of the World’s 
Fair had to be content with a photolithographic reproduction. 
In former times the authorities of the Royal Library were not 
so careful. As an instance may be mentioned that the royal anti¬ 
quarian Torfseus, who died in 1719, was allowed to borrow all these 
invaluable Icelandic manuscripts and keep them in his house in Nor¬ 
way for forty years. Such a state of things is of course unthinkable 
in our day. Now we watch over the treasures of the past and strive 
to add to them in order to leave posterity an augmented heritage. 
For it is this that gives an old library its distinctive character: it is 
the product of many generations working through the centuries with 
the same purpose and toward the same goal. 
*•£>*>** y: 
A Page from the Flateyaubok 
