Thordis told her husband what Ingileif had said. asgrimur did not believe her. But that night he had a dream. In his dream he was with a group of men in a great hall and an old Sami sorceress pointed to him. 'isildur tried and failed to destroy the ring and was killed in the process. Now it is up to you to find the ring and to take it to the mouth of Hel.'

Killing a man without reporting it was a great crime. Although asgrimur was convinced by his dream, he had no proof with which to accuse Gaukur, and Gaukur was not the man to accuse without proof. So asgrimur went to his neighbour Njall, a great and clever lawyer, to help him. Njall admitted that it would be impossible to prove anything at the Althing. But he suggested a trap.

So asgrimur told Thordis who told Ingileif that isildur had given him a helm in secret when he had returned from Norway. The helm belonged to Fafnir, the son of Hreidmar, and it was famous in legend. asgrimur had hidden it in an old barn on a hill at the edge of his farm at Tongue.

Then asgrimur stood watch, hiding in the roof of the barn to ambush Gaukur, if he should come looking for the helm. Sure enough, on the third night, he caught Gaukur entering the barn, looking for the helm. asgrimur confronted Gaukur who drew his sword.

'Would you kill me in order to steal what is not yours, just as you killed your brother?' asgrimur asked.

In answer Gaukur swung his sword at asgrimur. They fought. Although Gaukur was the stronger and the better warrior, he was overconfident and asgrimur was fired with anger at the betrayal by the foster-brother whom he had always supported so loyally. He ran Gaukur through with a spear.

asgrimur searched for the ring but never found it and Ingileif would not tell him where it was hidden. She said that the ring had already caused enough evil and should be left to rest.

Six months after Gaukur's death, Ingileif gave birth to a son, Hogni.

But the ring did not lie quietly. A century later there was an enormous volcanic eruption and Hekla smothered Gaukur's farm at Stong in ash, to be lost for ever.

The ring is still hidden somewhere in the hills near Stong. One day it will emerge, just as it emerged out of the Rhine at the time of Ulf. When it does, it must not fall again into the hands of an evil man. It must be tossed into the mouth of Mount Hekla, as the Sami sorceress decreed.

Until that time this saga shall be kept secret by the heirs of Hogni.

Magnus handed the last page to arni, who still had several pages to go, which was fair enough since English was not his first language. Magnus stared out over the lake at the two small islands in the middle.

He tried to control his excitement. Could the saga be real? If it was, it would be one of the greatest finds in Icelandic literature. More than that, its discovery would reverberate around the world.

He was quite certain that if it was genuine, it was previously unknown. There were no doubt plenty of minor sagas that Magnus had never heard of, but this was no minor saga. The Ring of Andvari, and the fact that the main character was Gaukur, the owner of Stong, would have ensured that the story would have become widely known within Iceland and beyond. Magnus recognized a couple of the characters from his beloved Njals Saga: Njall himself and asgrimur Ellida-Grimsson.

But was it genuine? It was difficult to be sure in translation, but the style looked authentic. Icelandic sagas had none of the poetic flourishes of medieval tales from the rest of Europe. At their best they were terse, precise and down to earth, more Hemingway than Tennyson. Unlike the rest of Europe, the ability to read in medieval Iceland was not confined to the clergy and books were not restricted to Latin. It was a nation of scattered farms, and there was a need for farmers isolated from village priests to be able to read the Bible for themselves and their households during the long winter nights. The sagas were historical novels written to be read by, not simply recited to, a mass audience.

If the saga was real, Gaukur's descendants had done a wonderful job of keeping it secret over the centuries. Until now, when a two-bit professor of Icelandic had taken it upon himself to show it to the wider world. Magnus had no doubt that this is what Agnar wanted to sell to Steve Jubb and the modern-day Isildur.

The links to The Lord of the Rings in Gaukur's Saga were obvious, much stronger than the Saga of the Volsungs. For one thing, the 'magic' of the ring was more powerful and more specific. Although there was nothing about invisibility, the ring took over the character of its keeper, corrupting him and causing him to betray or even kill his friends. And it extended his life. isildur's quest to throw the ring into Mount Hekla had obvious parallels with Frodo's quest to fling Sauron's Ring into Mount Doom.

The Lord of the Rings Internet chat rooms would be buzzing for years once they saw the saga. If they ever saw it. Perhaps the modern Isildur's plan was to hoard it somewhere, his very own Viking booty.

Magnus was not surprised he was prepared to pay so much.

But this was an English translation. There must be an Icelandic original, or more likely a copy of it, from which Agnar had made his translation. Magnus was sure that Baldur would have noticed an original saga written on eight-hundred-year-old vellum, but he could easily have missed a modern-day Icelandic copy.

While arni finished reading the last few pages, Magnus searched through Agnar's other papers.

Nothing.

'Perhaps it's in Agnar's office at the university?' arni suggested.

'Or maybe someone else has it,' said Magnus, thinking.

He looked out of the window over the lake towards the low snow-topped mountains in the distance. Then it came to him.

'Come on, arni. Let's get back to Reykjavik.'

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE GALLERY ON Skolavordustigur was only open for a couple of hours on Sundays and by the time Magnus and arni got there it was closed. But, peering in through the window, Magnus could see a figure working at the desk at the back of the shop.

He rapped on the glass door. Ingileif appeared, looking irritated. The irritation increased when she saw who it was. 'We're closed.'

'We didn't come here to buy anything,' Magnus said. 'We want to ask you some questions.'

Ingileif saw the grim expression on his face and let them in. She led them back to her desk which was covered in number-strewn papers, weighted down with a calculator. They sat facing her.

'You said your great-grandfather's name was isildur?' Magnus began.

'I did.'

'And your father's name was asgrimur?'

Ingileif frowned, the nick appearing above her eyebrow. 'Obviously. You know my name.'

'Interesting names.'

'Not especially,' said Ingileif. 'Apart from perhaps isildur, but we discussed that.'

Magnus said nothing, let silence do its work. Ingileif began to blush.

'Anyone in your family named Gaukur?' he asked.

Ingileif closed her eyes, exhaled and leaned backwards. Magnus waited.

'You found the saga, then?' she said.

'Just Agnar's translation. You should have known we would. Eventually.'

'Actually, Gaukur is a name we tend to avoid in our family.'

'I'm not surprised. Why didn't you tell us about it?'

Ingileif put her head in her hands.

Magnus waited.

'Have you read it?' she asked. 'All the way through?'

Magnus nodded.

'Well, obviously I should have told you, I was stupid not to. But if you have read the saga, you might understand why I didn't. It's been in my family for generations and we have successfully kept it a secret.'

'Until you tried to sell it.'

Ingileif nodded. 'Until I tried to sell it. Which is something I deeply regret now.'

'You mean now that someone is dead?'

Ingileif took a deep breath. 'Yes.'

'And this saga was really kept a secret for all those years?'

Ingileif nodded. 'Almost. With one lapse a few hundred years ago. Until my father, knowledge of the saga had only been passed on from father to eldest son, or in a couple of instances, eldest daughter. My father decided to read it to all us children, something my grandfather was not very happy about. But we were all sworn to absolute secrecy.'

'Do you still have the original?'

'Unfortunately, it wore out. We only have scraps left, but an excellent copy was made in the seventeenth century. I made a copy of that myself for Agnar to translate; it will be in his papers somewhere.'

'So, after all those centuries, why did you decide to sell it?'

Ingileif sighed. 'As you can imagine, people in my family have always been obsessed by the sagas, and by our saga in particular. Although my father became a doctor, he was the most obsessed of the lot. He was convinced that the ring mentioned in the saga still existed and he used to go on expeditions all around the valley of the River Thjorsa, which is where Gaukur's farm was, to look for it. He never found it, of course, but that's how he died. He fell off a cliff in bad weather.'

'I'm sorry,' said Magnus. And although Ingileif had lied to him, he was sorry.

'That put the rest of us off Gaukur's Saga. My brother, who until then had been brainwashed by Dad to a level of obsession that matched his, wanted nothing more to do with it. My sister was never very interested. I think my mother had always found the saga a little weird and held it responsible for Dad's death. Of all of them, I was perhaps the least put off: I went on to study Icelandic at university. So when I found I needed money desperately, it seemed to me that I was the only one who would really care if we sold it.

'The gallery is going bust. It is bust really. I need money badly a lot of money. So when my mother died last year I spoke to my brother and my sister about selling the saga. Birna, my sister, couldn't give a damn, but my brother Petur argued against it. He said we were custodians of the saga, it wasn't ours to sell. I was a bit surprised, but eventually Petur relented as long as it could be sold privately, with a secrecy clause. I think he might have his own money problems. Everyone does these days.'

'What does he do?'

'He owns bars and clubs. Do you know Neon?'

Magnus shook his head. Ingileif frowned at his ignorance. 'It's one of the most famous clubs in Reykjavik,' she said.

'I'm sure it is. I haven't been here very long,' said Magnus.

'I know it,' arni chipped in.

'I could see you were a party animal,' Ingileif said.

Now it was arni's turn to blush.

'So, once you had decided to sell it, why did you approach Agnar?' Magnus asked.

'He taught me at university,' Ingileif said. 'And, as I told you, I knew him quite well. He was sleazy enough to agree to sell the saga on the quiet away from the Icelandic government, but he liked me well enough not to rip me off totally. And it turned out he knew just the right buyer. A wealthy American Lord of the Rings fan, who was willing to keep the purchase private.'

'Lawrence Feldman? Steve Jubb?'

'I didn't know his name. You mentioned the name Steve Jubb before, didn't you? But you said he was English.'

'That's why you said you had never heard of him?'

'I hadn't heard the name before. But I admit I wasn't very helpful. I was desperately trying to keep the saga secret. As soon as I had told Agnar about it, I had second thoughts. I even told him that I wanted to take it off the market and keep it in the family.' She pursed her lips. 'He told me that it was too late. He knew all about it, and unless I went through with the sale, he would tell.'

'He blackmailed you?' Magnus said.

'I suppose you could call it that. I deserved it. And it worked. I thought it would be better all round to sell the saga secretly and split the proceeds between Petur, Birna and myself, than allow Agnar to broadcast its existence to the whole world.'

'How much did he say it would bring?'

'He was in the process of negotiating the price. He said it would be millions. Of dollars.'

Magnus took a deep breath. 'And where is this saga now?'

'In the gallery safe.' She hesitated. 'Do you want to see it?'

Magnus and arni followed her through to a store cupboard at the back of the shop. On the floor was a combination safe. Ingileif twiddled the knobs. She pulled out a leather-bound volume, and placed it on the desk.

'This is the seventeenth-century copy, the earliest complete copy.' She opened up the book at a random page. The pages were paper, covered in a neat black handwriting, clear and easy to read. 'You know when you asked me whether the saga had been kept a secret, I said there was one lapse?'

Magnus nodded.

'Well, this was copied from an earlier version that was bought from one of my ancestors by arni Magnusson, the great saga collector. The rest of the family was furious that he had sold it. arni Magnusson took it with all the others to Copenhagen, and it was one of those that was destroyed in the terrible fire of 1728, before it was catalogued. There is only one mention of Gaukur's Saga in existence today, to our knowledge, with no details as to what it contains. The majority of the collection went up in smoke, especially the paper copies. Within the family, we believe there was a reason the fire started.'

'Arson? Someone wanted to destroy it?'

Ingileif shook her head. 'That's not what they meant, although knowing how obsessive my family were, I wouldn't have been surprised. No it was more bad luck, fate, call it what you will.'

'The power of the ring,' said arni.

'Now you are beginning to sound like my father,' said Ingileif. 'But when Agnar was murdered, I couldn't help seeing the parallels.' She turned back to the safe. 'And then there is this. The original, or what's left of it.'

She carefully extracted a large old envelope, lay it on the desk, and slipped out two layers of stiff card, between which, separated by tissue paper, were perhaps half a dozen sheets of brown vellum. She pulled back the tissue so that they could see one of the sheets closely.

It was faded, torn at the edges, and covered in black writing. This was surprisingly clear: the initial letters of chapters were decorated in fading blues and reds. Magnus could make out the word 'isildur'.

'Amazing,' Magnus said. And indeed it was. Any doubts he had had about the authenticity of the translation he had read in Agnar's summer house were dispelled. He had gawped at the old sagas in the arni Magnusson exhibition, but he had never seen one this close. He couldn't resist reaching out with his fingertip to touch it.

'It is, isn't it?' Ingileif said, a note of pride in her voice.

'Do you know who wrote it?' Magnus asked.

'We think it was someone called isildur Gunnarsson,' Ingileif said. 'One of Gaukur's descendants, of course. We think he lived in the late thirteenth century, right when most of the major sagas were written.'

'But if this was such a great family secret, how did Tolkien ever see it?' Magnus asked. 'I mean, the links to the Lord of the Rings are so strong, it can't just be coincidence. He must have read it.'