Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/44

 of their descendants; the IslindingaIslendinga [sic] Bok, or Book of Iceland, usually quoted by the title of the Latin translation, "Schedæ Arii Polyhistoris," which is an account of the introduction of Christianity, and of other affairs in Iceland, and of the judges and other considerable personages; and the Flateyiar Annall, forming part of the important manuscript on parchment quoted so often by northern antiquaries by the name of the Codex Flateyensis,—are works of Are still extant. The Flateyiar Annall appears to have been a chronicle begun by Are, and continued by his successors in his parochial charge. It does not appear that any writing of Are upon parchment is extant, and his labours as a compiler appear to be known from the testimony only of Snorro Sturleson, or from copies such as those in the Codex Flateyensis, made from his writings. Are hinn Frode is reckoned by Torfæus to have been born about the year 1068, and to have written " the old and new narratives of events," which Snorro tells us he did, "two hundred and forty years after the first occupation of Iceland by the Norwegians about the year 1117. A manuscript of Biorn of Skardza, which Torfæus says was once in his possession, speaks of an older compiler than Are. Isleif, the first bishop of Iceland, who was consecrated by Adalbert, archbishop of Bremen, in 1056, and who died in 1080, is stated to have written a life of Harald Haarfager and his successors, down to Magnus the Good, who died about 1047, compiled from the current sagas; and his son, Bishop Gissur, is stated to have also collected and written down histories in the common tongue. Are hinn Frode was brought up as a foster-son in the house of Teit, another son of this Bishop Isleif, and, Torfæus supposes, may have used the materials collected by Isleif; and thus the labours of the two, as compilers or scribes of the ancient sagas, may have been attributed to the one of most