Oslo - Denmark hopes that the Norwegian buyer of a 300-year-old Bible will return the valuable book that was stolen from the Danish Royal Library, reports said on Thursday.

The Bible was believed to have been one of the 3 000 books stolen by a former librarian between 1967 and 1978.

The librarian died in February 2003, but his widow was sentenced last year for receiving and selling stolen books from the library's collection.

The librarian and his wife began to sell the stolen books from 1997 until the plot was uncovered in 2003.

The stolen Bible was printed in 1703 in Sweden. It was commissioned by Swedish King Charles XII, and the first edition was printed 1703. The Charles XII Bible was used as the official Bible in Sweden until 1917 when a new Swedish translation was issued.

The stolen Bible was sold in 2000 at an auction in New York.

The Norwegian buyer, who paid 30 000 kroner at the time, was not suspected of any crime, and would likely be compensated if the Bible were handed back to Denmark, officials at the Danish Royal Library told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK.

However, a deal has to be reached by August before the statute of limitations expires, NRK said.

The mystery of the stolen books began to unravel in late 2003 when the auction house Christie's of London was offered a copy of a book from 1517 of which the Danish Royal Library was the only known owner.

Police traced the seller and discovered a stash of hundreds of stolen books and other incriminating evidence in the widow's home. - Sapa-dpa