Bryne's library put a 1594 saga book on public view

The Time library in Bryne put a 1594 edition of Snorre Sturlasons Kongesagaer on public view on Monday. The Guardian reported on November 9, 2026, that Erling Haaland and his father, Alf Inge Haaland, bought the book at auction for 1.3 million Norwegian kroner, about £103,000, Norway's costliest book sale. It is described as the only surviving privately owned copy in this condition. They told the local librarian last December that the book would come to the town.

National librarian Åse Wetås said the National Library's three other copies are incomplete, and that she knows of no other copy in this condition. The text is the first printed edition of the sagas in Danish-Norwegian, translated by Mattis Størssøn and printed in Copenhagen, because Norway had no presses then. Snorri Sturlason wrote the sagas in the mid-13th century. The book is in a display case, and a digitised text with notes is available. Library director Anne Tjørhom Frick said the municipality has about 20,000 people. A Haaland reading contest, measuring time spent reading through November and January, has filled the room: on early-closing Tuesdays, pupils arrive around 1:15 p.m. and read until 6. The news is the book on view and that reading. It does not say who won the contest.