Respecting the body of the sagas, Laing (_Heimskringla_, i. 23) says: “It does not appear that any saga manuscript now existing has been written before the fourteenth century, however old the saga itself may be. It is known that in the twelfth century, Are Frode, Sæmund and others began to take the sagas out of the traditionary state and fix them in writing; but none of the original skins appear to have come down to our time, but only some of the numerous copies of them.” Laing (p. 24) also instances numerous sagas known to have existed, but they are not now recognized;[581] and he gives us (p. 30) the substance of what is known respecting the writers and transcribers of this early saga literature. It is held that by the beginning of the thirteenth century the sagas of the discoveries and settlements had all been put in writing, and thus the history, as it exists, of mediæval Iceland is, as Burton says (_Ultima Thule_, i. 237), more complete than that of any European country.[582] Among the secondary writers, using either at first or second hand the early MS. sources, the following may be mentioned:— One of the earliest brought to the attention of the English public was _A Compendious Hist. of the Goths, Swedes and Vandals, and other northern powers_ (London, 1650 and 1658), translated in an abridged form from the Latin of Olaus Magnus, which had been for more than a hundred years the leading comprehensive authority on the northern nations. The _Svearikes Historia_ (Stockholm, 1746-62) of Olof von Dalin and the similar work of Sven Lagerbring (1769-1788), covering the early history of the north, are of interest for the comparative study of the north, rather than as elucidating the history of Iceland in particular.[583] More direct aid will be got from Mallet’s _Northern Antiquities_ (London edition, 1847) and from Wheaton’s _Northmen_. More special is the _Histoire de l’Island_ of Xavier Marmier; and the German historian F. C. Dahlman also touches Iceland with particular attention in his _Geschichte von Dänemark bis zur Reformation, mit Inbegriff von Norwegen und Island_ (Hamburg, 1840-43). A history of more importance than any other yet published, and of the widest scope, was that of Sweden by E. J. Geijer (continued by F. F. Carlson), which for the early period (down to 1654) is accessible in English in a translation by J. H. Turner (London, 1845).[584]