Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 3.djvu/355

 APPENDIX. A'w^ix. In 1697 Peiingskiolcl published the first edition of the " Heimskringla," with a Swedish and a Latin translation. The manuscripts Avhich he used are not now extant, or are not known ; but are considered by Icelandic scholars, from orthographical and other variations, not to have been ancient, nor faithful copies of the most ancient manuscripts. The edition commenced in 1777 by Schoning under the aus- pices of the Danish government, and finished 1826 by Thor- lacius and Werlauf (the death of Schoning having suspended the publication), in six volumes folio, was formed from the collation of three ancient manuscripts in the Arnaei Magnei Collection, and from Peringskiold's edition. The following eight chapters are considered by the antiquaries an interpola- tion by the writer of the manuscript which Peringskiold had before him, not being in the other three manuscripts extant ; but they are admitted to be of an age prior to the end of the 14th century, being found verbatim in the " Codex Flatoy- ensis," which was written between 1387 and 1395 in the saga of Olaf Tryggvesson. If they were not used by Snorro Sturleson himself, the just inference is, not that they were of later date than his time, but that they were not materials connected with his work — with a chronicle of the kings of Norway. Where they are placed in Peringskiold's " Heim- skringla" they are evidently an interpolation, breaking the continuity of the story of Olaf Tryggvesson immediately after Chapter CIV. with new persons and events never re- curring again, in a way which the natural tact and taste of Snorro never allow him to do. They are not the less remark- able as being certainly committed to writing between 1387 and 1395, and in Iceland, a century nearly before Columbus, in 1477, repaired to that country to obtain the nautical in- formation on which he proceeded in his first voyage of disco- very in 1492. The following are the eight chapters. There are other interpolations in the manuscript from z 4