Page:The Finding of Wineland the Good.djvu/32

 Icelandic annals as 'legifer,' he having in that j-ear 'come out' to Iceland from Norway vested with the dignity of ' lawman ' It is as the incumbent of a similar office, to which he appears to have been appointed in 1294, that we first find Hauk Erlendsson mentioned. It is not unlikely that Hauk had visited Norway prior to 1301; there can be no doubt that he was in that country in the latter part of that year, for he was a 'lawman' in Oslo [the modern Christiania] upon the 28th of January, 1302, since upon that date he published an autographic letter, which is still in existence. Whether the rank of knighthood, which carried with it the title of ' herra ,' had already been conferred upon him at this time is not certain. He is first mentioned with this title, in Icelandic annals, in 1306, elsewhere in 1305, although it has been claimed that he had probably then enjo3^ed this distinction for some years , but upon what authority is not clear. While Hauk revisited Iceland upon more than one occasion after the year 1302, much of the remainder of his life appears to have been spent in Nor^va}', where he died in the year 1334.

On the back of page 21 of Hauk's Book Ami Magnusson has written, probably with a view to preserve a fading entry upon the same page, the words: ' This book belongs to Teit Paulsson [Teitr Pálsson], if he be not robbed .' It is not known who this Teit Paulsson was, but it is recorded that a man of this name sailed from Iceland to Norwa3^ in the j-ear 1344. He may have been the one-time owner of the book, and, if the manuscript was then in Norwa}^, may have carried it back to Iceland with him. Apart from this conjecture, the fact remains that the early history of Hauk's Book is shrouded in obscurity. It is first mentioned in the beginning of the seventeenth