This last-named manuscript, while it was undoubtedly written long after Hauk’s Book, probably embodies the earlier and better text of this version. It is certainly not a free rendering of the story, but a literal transcript of some earlier manuscript, for it contains a number of typical copyist’s errors. There are, for example, words repeated twice in succession, and passages which as they stand are meaningless, and require some simple emendation. It is equally certain that the text followed was not that of Hauk, for the language differs slightly throughout, and there are sentences in each version neither occurring in the other nor arising from it by necessary implication. The theory that the Saga of Eric the Red embodies an earlier text than that of Hauk is deduced by experts from the greater simplicity of the language in the former version. To the lay mind the most convincing proof is to be derived from the genealogy at the end of the saga. As has already been stated, it was the practice of transcribers to bring such pedigrees down to their own day. Hauk follows this practice, tracing the line of Karlsefni down to himself. The Saga of Eric stops short at Bishop Brand the first, several generations earlier. Hauk, according to his account, was the great-great-great-grandson of Bishop Brand’s second cousin. (See Genealogical Table, p. 20.) The fact, however, that Bishop Brand is described as ‘the first’ shows conclusively that the text copied in Eric’s Saga was not completed till the ordination of the second bishop of that name, which took place in 1263. Of course, as far as this goes, it is not inconsistent with the writers of these two versions having worked from the same manuscript, which Hauk altered and edited, while the other scribe contented himself with a literal copy. While, however, the sense of Hauk’s version follows approximately that of the rival manuscript, the language is rarely identical for many words together. Had both been working from the same manuscript, this is not what one would expect to find: it is so much simpler to transcribe a passage _verbatim_, when the meaning which it is intended to convey is as adequately given by such a method. And Hauk’s text occasionally gives us information which cannot be explained as a mere intelligent amplification of the other.