cared about these vellum manuscripts that no one could read. In Iceland, on the other hand, it was probably overuse that damaged the books the most. Books were lent from person to person and read from cover to cover. Then new transcripts were made and the old shreds were lost. The Reformation also cast a bad light on anything written by the monks. It is not known who held the Flatey Book after Jón Hákonarson in Vídidalstunga, but in the latter half of the fifteenth century it was in the hands of Thorleifur Björnsson, a seneschal in Reykhólar. It was then owned by Thorleifur’s grandson, Jón Björnsson, in Flatey, and he gave the book to his grandson, Jón Finnsson, who also lived in Flatey; and it is after their home island that the book is named.
“In the sixteenth century, national awareness was awakening in Europe. An emphasis was placed on the power of the nation and the strength of the kingdom. Interest in the history of nations grew, and in the Nordic countries, learned men knew that sources were to be found in Iceland. The Danish king sent manuscript collectors to Iceland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and Árni Magnússon was the most prominent of these. But there were other collectors, too. The bishop sagas refer to Jón the farmer in Flatey, saying that he had a big and thick vellum manuscript of monk writings containing the histories of the Norwegian kings and a lot more, and here it was generally referred to as the Flatey Book…”
CHAPTER 15
K jartan and Grímur headed to the telephone exchange after their visit to Ystakot and made calls all over. They contacted the mail boat over the Gufunes radio, since it was positioned out in the bay of Faxaflói, on its way to Stykkishólmur with a cargo of cement from Akranes. The crew of the boat could offer them no information on the foreign passenger. He could well have been on board, but they had no specific recollection of him. It would mainly have been the cook who interacted with the passengers the most, but he had been on vacation for those weeks last year. A young girl, who had just graduated from the domestic college, had replaced him during his absence. She was now married to someone in the Westman Islands, as far as they knew.
Reverend Veigar in Reykhólar remembered Gaston Lund very well but had not heard from him, nor expected to hear from him. He had only stayed one night in Reykhólar. The hotel owner in Stykkishólmur confirmed that Lund had not stayed at the hotel overnight, after the boat arrived from Flatey. The bus for Reykjavik was leaving the following morning, so he assumed he must have stayed somewhere else in the village, if he had arrived on the boat.
The driver of the Stykkishólmur bus was at his home in Reykjavik. “I can’t even remember who was on my bus yesterday,” he answered when Grímur asked him whether he remembered a Danish passenger on September 4 last year.
Finally, there was a message from the detective division in Reykjavik. Gaston Lund had stayed in Hotel Borg for two nights when he came to Iceland and left his case in storage while he was traveling around the country. The case had been kept in a storage room in the hotel’s basement and had been forgotten. This was why no one had wondered why it hadn’t been collected.
Kjartan and Grímur sat at the telephone exchange until dinnertime, continuing with their enquiries. Stína, the head of the telephone exchange, and her colleague in Stykkishólmur stayed open long past their normal working hours, eavesdropping on the conversations with excitement.
More information arrived from the Danish embassy. Gaston Lund had traveled from Copenhagen to Norway in mid-July. He was single, somewhat eccentric in his habits, and apparently liked to keep to himself. His colleagues at the University of Copenhagen knew he intended to go to Bergen, Trondheim, and Stiklestad in Norway, but he had never mentioned any visit to Iceland. Questions soon began to be
“In the sixteenth century, national awareness was awakening in Europe. An emphasis was placed on the power of the nation and the strength of the kingdom. Interest in the history of nations grew, and in the Nordic countries, learned men knew that sources were to be found in Iceland. The Danish king sent manuscript collectors to Iceland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and Árni Magnússon was the most prominent of these. But there were other collectors, too. The bishop sagas refer to Jón the farmer in Flatey, saying that he had a big and thick vellum manuscript of monk writings containing the histories of the Norwegian kings and a lot more, and here it was generally referred to as the Flatey Book…”
CHAPTER 15
K jartan and Grímur headed to the telephone exchange after their visit to Ystakot and made calls all over. They contacted the mail boat over the Gufunes radio, since it was positioned out in the bay of Faxaflói, on its way to Stykkishólmur with a cargo of cement from Akranes. The crew of the boat could offer them no information on the foreign passenger. He could well have been on board, but they had no specific recollection of him. It would mainly have been the cook who interacted with the passengers the most, but he had been on vacation for those weeks last year. A young girl, who had just graduated from the domestic college, had replaced him during his absence. She was now married to someone in the Westman Islands, as far as they knew.
Reverend Veigar in Reykhólar remembered Gaston Lund very well but had not heard from him, nor expected to hear from him. He had only stayed one night in Reykhólar. The hotel owner in Stykkishólmur confirmed that Lund had not stayed at the hotel overnight, after the boat arrived from Flatey. The bus for Reykjavik was leaving the following morning, so he assumed he must have stayed somewhere else in the village, if he had arrived on the boat.
The driver of the Stykkishólmur bus was at his home in Reykjavik. “I can’t even remember who was on my bus yesterday,” he answered when Grímur asked him whether he remembered a Danish passenger on September 4 last year.
Finally, there was a message from the detective division in Reykjavik. Gaston Lund had stayed in Hotel Borg for two nights when he came to Iceland and left his case in storage while he was traveling around the country. The case had been kept in a storage room in the hotel’s basement and had been forgotten. This was why no one had wondered why it hadn’t been collected.
Kjartan and Grímur sat at the telephone exchange until dinnertime, continuing with their enquiries. Stína, the head of the telephone exchange, and her colleague in Stykkishólmur stayed open long past their normal working hours, eavesdropping on the conversations with excitement.
More information arrived from the Danish embassy. Gaston Lund had traveled from Copenhagen to Norway in mid-July. He was single, somewhat eccentric in his habits, and apparently liked to keep to himself. His colleagues at the University of Copenhagen knew he intended to go to Bergen, Trondheim, and Stiklestad in Norway, but he had never mentioned any visit to Iceland. Questions soon began to be
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