MR. H. EDWARDS informs us it appeared in an early number of Chambers’ Journal. J.G.A.P. kindly refers us to the Dublin Penny Journal, vol. i. p. 48., where the story is also told; and to a poetical version of it, entitled “The Bell-founder,” first printed in the Dublin University Magazine, and since in the collected poems of the author, D. H. McCarthy.]

Codex Flateyensis (Vol. ii., p. 278.).—­Your correspondent W.H.F., when referring to the Orkneyinga Saga, requests information regarding the Codex Flateyensis, in which is contained one of the best MSS. of the Saga above mentioned.  W.H.F. labours under the misapprehension of regarding the Codex Flateyensis as a mere manuscript of the Orkneyinga Saga, whereas that Saga constitutes but a very small part of the magnificent volume.  The Codex Flateyensis takes its name, as W.H.F. rightly concludes, from the island of Flatey in the Breidafiord in Iceland, where it was long preserved.  It is a parchment volume most beautifully executed, the initial letters of the chapters being finely illuminated, and extending in many instances, as in a fac-simile now before me, from top to bottom of the folio page.  The contents of the volume may be learned from the following lines on the first page; I give it in English as the original is in Icelandic:—­

“John Hakonson owns this book, herein first are written verses, then how Norway was colonised, then of Erik the Far-travelled, thereafter of Olaf Tryggvason the king with all his deeds, and next is the history of Olaf Haraldson, the saint, and of his deeds, and therewith the history of the earls of Orkney, then is there Sverrers Saga; thereafter the Saga of Hakon the Old, with the Saga of Magnus the king, his son, then the deeds of Einar Sokkeson of Greenland, and next of Elga and Ulf the Bad; and then begin the annals from the creation of the world to the present year.  John Thordarson the priest wrote the portion concerning Erik the Far-travelled, and the Sagas of both the Olaves; but Magnus Thorhallson the priest has written all that follows, as well as all that preceded, and has illuminated all (the book).  Almighty God and the holy virgin mary give joy to those who wrote and to him who dictated.”

A little further on we learn from the text that when the book began to be written there had elapsed from the birth of Christ 1300 and 80 and 7 years.  The volume was, therefore, commenced in 1387, and finished, as we judge from the year at which the annals cease, in 1395.  The death of Hakon Hakonson is recorded in the last chapters of the Saga of that name, which we see is included in the list of those contained in the Codex Flateyensis.

E. CHARLTON.

Newcastle-on-Tyne, Oct. 6. 1850.