Footballer donates Norway’s most expensive book to home town

Manchester City star footballer Erling Haaland and his father, retired footballer Alf-Inge Haaland, have donated the most expensive Norwegian book ever sold to their hometown of Time, southwestern Norway. It is the only known surviving copy of the 1594 edition of the Viking royal sagas by Icelander Snorri Sturluson, translated and printed for the first time in Norwegian at a time when there were no printing presses in Norway. It sold at auction in December for 1.3 million krone ($134,000), the highest price ever paid for a Norwegian book.

The book was an abridged collection of Snorri’s sagas translated by magistrate, military commander and historian Mattis Størssøn. It is the oldest printed history of Norway, published in Copenhagen by Jens Mortensen 25 years after Størssøn’s death from a manuscript owned by historian Arild Huitfeldt.

Haaland bought it with the intention of giving it to the Time Municipality so it could be placed on public display in the town’s library and inspire people to read and develop connections to their shared cultural heritage. The municipality is working with the EH9 Foundation to create a secure permanent exhibit for the precious volume.

“I want the book always to lie open so that people can read about those who came from where I come from, from Bryne and Jæren,” Erling Braut Haaland says in a comment. “It’s easier to feel drawn to reading when you can recognise yourself in the people and places being written about.”

To help achieve the goal, the Haalands are sponsoring a reading competition with a pretty sweet prize.

The competition, which will be organised by Time Municipality, will begin in the 2026/2027 school year. Pupils in middle school and lower secondary school in Time will then be invited to read as much as they can, and the classes that eventually win will be invited to Ullevaal Stadium for a match together with Erling Braut Haaland and the rest of the national team. […]

It is the schools in Time that will organise the reading competition, and it is no coincidence that this effort is starting here. Alfie’s parents and several others in the family have been teachers in the schools here, and both Erling and Alfie attended school in Time. “Roots are important,” Alfie Haaland says in a comment. “Our roots are here in the municipality, and we also all have deep roots that can be found in the stories in Snorri’s royal sagas. We hope that both the book and the competition can bring joy and help form the roots of new generations in Time.”

* This article was originally published here