World Cup breakout star Erling Haaland of Norway, recently sent a 1594 piece of Norwegian history home to Bryne, and he wants local children to pick up books because of it.

Haaland and his father, Alfie Haaland, have bought the only surviving privately owned copy of Mattis Størssøn’s 1594 edition of Snorri Sturluson’s royal sagas and given it to Time Municipality. The book will be displayed and made accessible to the public at the library in Bryne, where Haaland is from.

The copy was sold by shipowner and collector Johan Odfjell. It was bought “so that people in Norway could enjoy it”, according to the source text.

The charitable EH9 Foundation, working with Time Municipality and its library, will help the book be exhibited in secure surroundings for local people and visitors.

“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.”

Haaland said he hopes the book will help create a desire to read. He and his father have also asked Time Municipality to launch a reading competition linked to the gift.

The competition will begin in the 2026/2027 school year. Pupils in middle school and lower secondary school in Time will be invited to read as much as they can, and the winning classes will be invited to Ullevaal Stadium for a match with Erling Braut Haaland and the rest of the national team.

“I’ve been lucky enough to live out my dream through football, and I know not everyone gets that chance,” says Erling.

“Books give so many more people the chance to dream big, see new possibilities and find their own path.”

Time mayor Andreas Vollsund said the municipality was “extremely grateful” for the gift and for the reading push tied to it.

“We are extremely grateful,” says Andreas Vollsund, mayor of Time Municipality.

“Grateful for this incredibly generous gift, grateful that Erling, who is the most famous Norwegian in the world, never forgets where he comes from, but above all we are grateful that he, Alfie and the EH9 Foundation are giving us the opportunity to do one of the most important things we can do for our young people: give them the joy of reading.”

The schools in Time will organise the reading competition. The source text says Alfie Haaland’s parents and several others in the family have been teachers in schools there, 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.”

Snorri’s royal sagas were written down by the Icelander Snorri Sturluson in the mid-13th century and tell stories of kings, queens, farmers and warriors in medieval Norway. The first printed edition in Norwegian-Danish came in 1594, before there were printing presses in Norway, so it was printed in Denmark.

Mattis Størssøn, who lived from about 1500 to 1569, was lawman of Bergen and translated old saga texts from Old Norse into modern Danish or Danish-Norwegian. His manuscript was first published as a book in 1594, more than 20 years after his death, and is regarded as the first printed history of Norway’s earliest past.

The edition given to Time Municipality is in two volumes and was printed in Copenhagen in 1594. The source text says it sold for more than 1 million Norwegian kroner, the highest price ever paid for a Norwegian book.

Read more from Goodable.