the _Saga of Hervoer and
Heithrek_, p. 81 f. below.]

[Footnote 24: Copenhagen, 1901.]

INTRODUCTION TO THE THATTR OF NORNAGEST

This story occurs as an episode in the long _Saga of Olaf
Tryggvason_--to be distinguished from the shorter _Saga of Olaf
Tryggvason_ contained in the _Heimskringla_ and translated by Morris
and Magnusson in the _Saga Library_[1]. The best known manuscript
(_F_) of the longer saga is the _Flateyjarbok_ which comes from the
island of Flatey in Breithifjoerth off the west of Iceland, and was
written between 1386 and 1394. The second (_S_) is the Codex _Arn.
Magn. 62_ in the Royal Library (at Copenhagen), which, like the
former, contains a fragment only of the _Saga of Olaf Tryggvason_,
but includes the _Thattr of Nornagest_. This MS. dates, in all
probability, from shortly after the middle of the fourteenth
century. Finally, besides several paper MSS. (comparatively late and
unimportant), there is a MS. _A_ (number 2845 of the Royal Library at
Copenhagen) dating from the fifteenth century, in which the _thattr_
stands by itself.

Rafn[2], in his edition of the _Fornaldarsoegur_, based his text of the
_thattr_ on _A_; but subsequent examination has rendered it probable
that this MS. is hardly independent of _F_ which gives an earlier and
better text. As regards MSS. _F_ and _S_, the latter frequently gives
a better reading than the former[3]. For this reason it was followed
by Bugge[4] who believed it to be the better source. Wilken[5] however
held that _F_ represents the 'Vulgate' of the _thattr_, while _S_
gives a corrected and edited version. In his edition, therefore, he
chiefly followed _F_, though he made use of _S_ throughout, and also
(for the poems) the _Codex Regius_ of the Older Edda. His example has
been followed by later editors, including Valdimar Asmundarson[6],
from whose version the following translation has been made. The
differences between all three MSS. appear to be very slight, but
Asmundarson's edition approximates more closely to Wilken's than to
Rafn's. Indeed the variations between the texts of Wilken's second
edition[7] and Asmundarson are negligible. For a full bibliography of
texts, translations, and literature relating to this saga the reader
is referred to _Islandica_, Vol. V, p. 32.

The saga itself dates from about 1300[8]. It is derived from
tradition, mainly Icelandic; but the various stories contained in
it differ greatly from one anothe