History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North/Part 1/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II.
OLD NORSE LITERATURE.
TOWARD the close of the fourteenth century the literary development in Iceland and in Norway, of which we have essayed to give some account in the preceding chapter, ceased almost wholly; when Norway became united with Denmark the ancient Icelandic Norwegian book-speech died out in the former country, Danish took its place, and from this time Norway also became joined to Denmark in literature. Intellectual culture emanated from the common university in Copenhagen and bore an exclusively Danish impress. The national movements that were agitated in Norway during her union with Denmark were of but little importance. Not before the end of the eighteenth century did the national sentiment prevail in the literature, and when Norway had gotten her own university (1811), and especially when she had separated from Denmark in the year 1814, she also gradually became more independent in literary respects.
In Iceland alone the ancient "dönsk tunga" survived, and there it has continued to be spoken even to this day, the language having suffered but few and unimportant changes, and these chiefly limited to pronunciation. After the literary activity had almost wholly ceased for some time, there sprang up a new literature, which in its main features gradually approached the general current of European thought, but which still was more or less an immediate continuation of the old peculiarly Norse development, or was at least closely related to it. The conditions under which this new Icelandic literature grew up were, indeed, anything but favorable. Again and again the island was visited by epidemics, volcanic eruptions, famine and other plagues, which devastated the country to a well nigh inconceivable extent. Most terribly did the Black Death rage here, which in the years 1402-1404 killed two thirds of the inhabitants, who before this scourge came upon them numbered 120,000 to 130,000, a loss from which the island has never since been able to recover. Even at the present the population of Iceland is not more than 70,000. The severe climate made and still makes life there a hard struggle for existence. To this was added the oppression on the part of the Danish government, which legislated injudiciously for Iceland, especially in regard to her commerce, and this unwise legislation was continued down to the most recent times. While it thus was no easy matter for the Icelanders to secure the necessities of life, nevertheless the intellectual products of this rocky island have continued to maintain a high rank since the seventeenth century. The Icelanders are an exceptionally intelligent people. There is not an individual among them who is not able to read, and in proportion to the size of the country or rather to the number of inhabitants, the modern Icelandic literature must be regarded as extraordinarily rich. They preserve, above all, a deep interest in the memories of the past. Sagas are still for the Icelanders the most delectable reading, and the most of them are familiar even with the details of the most important sagas and of their complicated genealogies.
The literary productiveness from the close of the fourteenth until toward the end of the sixteenth century was very slight, but then there sprang up a new and comparatively very vigorous life to which the introduction of printing (1530) by Iceland's last Catholic bishop, Jon Arason, mainly contributed. It was the purpose of this strong-willed man to use the press as a weapon against the Reformation, but here as everywhere else it became the most potent agency for promoting its cause, and with the Reformation intellectual life began anew to blossom. Yet not before Jon Arason's death (1552) was the chief obstacle to the introduction of the Reformation in Iceland removed.
The first Icelandic translation of the New Testament was made by Odd Gudiskalksson. On journeys in Germany and Denmark he had become acquainted with Luther and his doctrine, and surrounded by the greatest difficulties he took upon himself the task which needed most to be performed in order to remove the old errors, viz., the translation of the word of God into the mother tongue. His translation was printed in Denmark, in 1540, but the whole Bible did not become accessible to the Icelandic people before the year 1584, after Bishop Gudbrand Thorlaksson had finished his complete translation of Luther's German version of the sacred Scriptures.
There arose at length in the seventeenth century two men whose lives and works had a radical influence on the religious development and opinions of the Icelanders. One of them was the preacher and psalmist Hallgrim Pjetttrsson (1614-1674). Though he is neither as voluminous nor inclined to soar on as lofty a poetic pinion as his great contemporary psalmists in Denmark and Sweden, still his works are of great value since they give the clearest revelations we have in a northern tongue of the spirit of the Reformation. This is particularly true of his fifty psalms which have the passion story for their theme, and which have in so remarkable a degree won the hearts of the Icelandic people that they have become one of the first necessities of every household. Thirty editions of this work have appeared. With fervent emotion the poet grasps in each part of the passion story its significance to the life of every Christian in relation to God, and his psalms are clothed in clear and stately language with phrases and figures here and there of startling originality and beauty. No less important was the preacher Jon Thorkelsson Vidalin (died 1720), whose works still rank very high and are much read by the people. His postil (family book of sermons), especially, can be found everywhere both among the rich and among the poor. In profound comprehension of the Bible, and in a faculty of reproducing its passages in such a manner that they illustrate and explain one another and thus touch the heart, in force of language and boldness of thought, and in deep insight into the conditions and wants of the human soul, these sermons of Vidalin are surpassed by few religious works. Pjetursson and Vidalin were followed by a long line of talented psalmists and preachers. The former made valuable contributions to the Icelandic psalm book, which is a splendid collection of Christian hymns, while the various religious views of the successive epochs are fully and uniquely recorded in a series of postils. Among more modern works of this kind we may mention the postil of Arne Helgason (1777-1870) which contains a noble and moderate interpretation of rationalism, and a collection of sermons by the present bishop, Pjetursson.[1]
The close of the sixteenth and the whole of the seventeenth century embraces the Learned Epoch of the North, during which the Icelanders took a noble part in the intellectual activity of Scandinavia and surely furnished their quota to the army of scholars. Their industry in thoroughly investigating and in producing scholarly works on the Old Norse and Icelandic literature is preëminently praiseworthy. Though they had ceased to produce it, their interest for the old saga literature never flagged. They preserved and multiplied the old documents by copying them. Still, much of value was not accomplished before toward the end of the sixteenth century, when the Reformation quickened the intellectual activities and gave the impulse to new and vigorous productions on the basis of the monuments of the past. But the literature now produced was of a wholly different character from that of the Middle Ages, inasmuch as it was not popular but bore the impress of the learned period. The first eminent writer in this new field was the Dean Arngrim Jonsson (1568-1648), the progenitor of the celebrated Vidalins, one of the most prominent families of modern Iceland. The difference between the manner and attitude with which the old memories were now approached and that which characterizes the bloom epoch of popular literature, appears conspicuously in the circumstance that Arngrim was called "hinn lærdi" (the learned) by his contemporaries, while on the other hand Sæmund and Are were surnamed "hinn fróði " (the wise). Arngrim is justly styled "the restorer of Icelandic literature," and he gained great honor by collecting manuscripts and facts in regard to the antiquity of Iceland. The results of his investigations published in Latin marked in some respects a new era in the study of northern antiquities. He also translated old documents (e.g. the Jomsvikinga Saga) into Latin or epitomized them, and laid upon the whole an excellent foundation for other scholars and investigators to build upon. The interest for the old literature thus awakened in Iceland spread rapidly over the other countries of the North, and the study of antiquities, which again resulted in a thorough study of Iceland's ancient history and language, and for which all means had hitherto been wanting, was now pursued by a whole school of learned men in the North. There was also a great rivalry between Denmark and Sweden, in which latter country the zeal was so great that people would lie in wait to intercept Icelanders who were on their way to Denmark with manuscripts, etc. Thus it came to pass that Jon Rugman, who in 1658 was on his way from Iceland to Copenhagen, was intercepted by the Swedes and brought to Upsala, where he received an appointment. Afterward he secured several Icelandic manuscripts for the Upsala university.
The study of northern antiquities was, of course, prosecuted in the northern lands by the aid of constant communication with Iceland. Here, too, Arngrim had pointed out the way, for he carried on a lively correspondence with the Danish antiquary, Ole Worm, sent him the manuscript of the Younger Edda, and contributed materially in various other ways to promote the studies of this eminent man in this field. His example was followed by other Icelanders. Thus the translator of the Icelandic Bible, Bishop Thoklak Skulason (1597-1656), communicated to Ole Worm the earliest investigations in regard to Icelandic poetry. Bishop Brynjulf Sveinsson (1605-1675) was also in constant communication with Ole Worm and other scholars, and is famous as the discoverer of important manuscripts, particularly of that of the Elder Edda.
While these studies were being pursued, a few efforts were made to take up again and continue in the Icelandic tongue the writing of history which had been so long neglected. Such an effort was made by the peasant, Björn Jonsson of Skardsá, who wrote the annals of the time from 1400 to 1646, which, from the home of the author, are called the Skardsá-annals. In this connection it is proper to mention that the learned investigations gave the impulse to the reawakening, in the seventeenth century, of popular, traditional literature, independent of the strictly historical field. Even at the present time oral traditions circulate, which must be accepted with the greatest caution, since their pretended claim to genuineness and trustworthiness will, on a careful examination, be found unfounded. The same is largely true of modern manuscripts of sagas, poems, laws, etc., since such manuscripts have been made, even in very recent times, partly for the purpose of deception, partly without any sinister motive, they being simply the result of the strange coöperation of an extravagant fancy and a tendency to produce poetry.
An important work, one which must be done if the study of the literary remains of Iceland's antiquity was not to remain limited to the scholars of that island, was a supply of linguistic aids, and in the furnishing of these the Icelanders also, and as a matter of course especially those who lived in Denmark, took an active and praiseworthy part. Thus Runolf Jonsson published the first Icelandic grammar in 1651, and Magnus Olafsson, from Laufóss (1573-1636), compiled an Icelandic dictionary, published by Ole Worm in 1650, in which the Icelandic words were printed in runes, they being at that time regarded as the original manuscript alphabet in the North. Another Icelandic dictionary, of which Gudmund Andersen (died 1654) is the author, appeared in 1683. Gudmund was also the first scholar who wrote on the poems of the Elder Edda. His work on the Vala's Prophecy and Odin's High Song, accompanied by a Latin translation, was published in Denmark in the same volume as the first edition of the Younger Edda.[2]
The Danish government took great pains to make the Icelandic manuscripts more widely accessible to the world of scholars, and from the time of King Frederik III (1648- 1670) it appointed royal antiquaries who were charged with this duty. Naturally enough, Icelanders were chiefly called to fill this office. Of these antiquaries there is, however, only one who was of any great importance, Thormod Torfason (Torfæus), 1636-1719, and by him the whole subject of archæology was raised to the highest point of excellence and scholarship. In 1660 he was appointed "interpres regius" in the royal service, in which capacity he translated under the very eyes of Frederik several sagas and other manuscripts into Danish. Then he was sent to Iceland to make a search for parchments, of which he brought with him a considerable number back to Denmark. After that he was appointed "antiquarius regius," an office which he had to resign because he had committed manslaughter in self-defence. He went to Norway, where in 1682 he was made the royal historiographer of this country. In this position he developed his great and important literary activity, from which came a series of works on northern antiquities, written in Latin, and, when viewed in the light of their time, of inestimable value. His chief work is a large history of Norway in four folio volumes, which, in connection with his "Icelandic hypothesis" (a succession of Danish kings compiled from Icelandic sources and varying from the one established by Saxo, the Grammarian), made a great stir in the learned world and laid the foundation of his great fame. His other works also (contributions to the history of the Fareys, the Orkneys, Vinland, Greenland, etc.) secured him deserved recognition. His works are remarkable for their great learning, and, although they are perceptibly lacking in criticism,—Torfæus was, upon the whole, incapable of distinguishing between myth and history,—still they are not only superior in value to all other works that his age produced in this field, but they are even at the present time of importance to the historian, and Holberg did not without reason characterize the history of Norway, which is written in elegant Latin, as "one of the most noteworthy and excellent historical works that have ever seen the light of the world."[3]
A younger contemporary and countryman of Torfæus, Arne Magnusson (1663-1730), made his name famous less by his writings—for he has scarcely written anything in book form, although he left behind him a great number of memoranda, which not only bear evidence of his incredible industry and comprehensive knowledge of the old literature, but which also in many ways have been of help to later antiquarian scholars—than by the remarkable zeal with which he collected manuscript chronicles, correspondences, and other original documents for elucidating the history of the North. For accomplishing this he had the most excellent opportunity, as he was sent to Iceland as member of a commission whose duty it was to make a new register of the lands in reference to taxation, and he employed his sojourn of nearly ten years there hunting up old documents with an indefatigableness which is unparalleled. He was armed with a royal letter commanding the Icelanders to deliver to him whatever they might possess in the form of old manuscripts. He did not content himself with simply publishing this royal order, but he travelled himself from farm to farm gathering in each place all that could be discovered in the shape of valuable records, and it was found that in spite of the large number which had been sent to Denmark and Sweden in the seventeenth century there still remained a vast aftermath. Thus he carried off to Copenhagen a collection of manuscript which was unique in the North. Unfortunately the greater part of it perished in the flames of the disastrous fire in Copenhagen, in the year 1728. What was rescued and what he afterward was able to collect, he left by will to the University of Copenhagen, and when we look at this "Arnamagnean Collection"—which still is the largest ever made by one man—in its present condition and consider that it is but a third part of what there was before the fire, then we are able to form some idea of the loss which science here suffered. His property he also donated to the university in the form of a legacy to be employed in the publication of the contents of the library, and as a result of this beneficence several important antiquarian volumes have made their appearance.[4]
Another distinguished contemporary of Torfæus was Pál Jonsson Vidalin (1667-1727), the grandson of the above-mentioned Arngrim Jonsson, eminent both as linguist and poet, and especially renowned on account of critical, linguistic and archæological inquiries into ancient jurisprudence. His great work in this field, for which he prepared more than a hundred essays, and which was in all respects his chief undertaking, remained unfinished on account of his too early death.
Throughout the eighteenth century the enthusiasm for antiquities continued, and with it the linguistic and historical studies whose chief representatives in the learned epoch we have mentioned. During the last century a large number of books on antiquities, language and history, were written, but many of them have never appeared in print. All of them, both those published and the unpublished ones, furnish the most gratifying evidence of the great care with which all relics of the past were preserved, and of the zeal and untiring industry with which the scholars labored to make them available, though of course many works that in the time of their production were worthy of unstinted praise have now lost much of their value. The Icelanders have also taken a laudable part in the efforts of the nineteenth century to advance the science of northern philology and antiquities, which, after the national movement at the beginning of the century had permeated all the Scandinavian North, has continued to be studied with ever increasing zeal to this day in every northern land. Of the great number of men who have distinguished themselves by comprehensive learning and by the publication of valuable works in this field we can only mention some of the most eminent. The bulk of Eggert Olafsson's (1726-1767) works were lost in the shipwreck which he suffered in Broad Firth, and in which he himself lost his life; but that part which remains is sufficient to establish his reputation as one of the most eminent antiquaries and also as one of the ablest linguists and jurists of his nation. His brother Jon Olafsson (1731-1811), was also an antiquary, and has become famous chiefly on account of his exhaustive work on the old Norse poetry, which is still one of the best authorities in this field. Bishop Finn Jonsson (1704-1789) produced in a large work written in Latin a splendid ecclesiastical history of Iceland. Jon Erichsen (1728-1787) developed a marked activity not only as an independent author of archaeological works, but also as editor of similar works by older writers. Björn Haldorsson (1724-1798) compiled an Icelandic-Latin lexicon, which was published after his death by the Danish linguist Rasmus Rask in the year 1814, and which was the most important lexicographical aid to the study of old Norse until it recently was replaced by Konrad Gislason's great Danish-Icelandic dictionary (1851) and by the Old Norse dictionary by Erik Jonsson (1863). The latter is supplemented in reference to the difficult language of the poetry by Sveinbjörn Egilsson's magnificent old Norse-Latin dictionary, the "Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis" (1860). Among the eminent Icelandic scholars Finn Magnusson (1781-1847), one of the most thorough and profound students of northern antiquities, occupies the front rank. In almost every branch of northern antiquities he has produced works of great importance and value, which partly are to be found in countless essays published in various journals, and which partly appeared in stout, separate volumes. His greatest learning is embodied in his work on northern mythology, which he discussed in connection with the mythologies of other peoples (comparative mythology). In many of the details this work furnishes most valuable interpretations, though his theory that Norse mythology is nothing but symbolic expressions of the forces and phenomena of nature, among which symbols the astronomical element predominates, must, when rigidly applied, be considered a failure. Jon Espolin's (1769-1836) annals, which in twelve large quartos (Copenhagen 1821-1855) contain the history of Iceland from 1261 to 1832, furnish excellent proof of the zeal of inquiry and of the deep interest in the events of the past, which are so characteristic of the Icelanders from the oldest time to this very day. The author, a district judge in Skage Firth, gathered in his isolated home, with untiring industry, all obtainable reports of events and persons from the above period and recorded them in narrative form, without the slightest prospect that his great work would ever be printed. Then the Icelandic Literary Society was organized in 1816, and a few years later this society undertook the publication of Espolin's voluminous work, which otherwise doubtless would have had the same fate as so many other works written in former times in that far off island, and which, though being the fruit of many years' persistent and thorough study, never have seen the light of the world.
We fear that we already have wearied our readers by this survey or summary of what the Icelanders of modern times have contributed to the knowledge of the history, antiquities and language of their own country and of the whole Scandinavian North, and yet the list of scholars who have labored efficiently in this field would have to be very much amplified before it could lay any claim to being even tolerably exhaustive. This whole school of writers with its profound and comprehensive study of all the ancient documents has its root in a remarkably intense patriotism which has burned in the bosoms of the Icelanders with no less steady flame in the evil days than in the good, and which has manifested itself in many other ways in their literature, and that not alone in high-sounding phrases, but in efficient work for the weal of their country.[5]
The patriotism of the Icelanders has now and then been roused to extraordinary heights, and has especially manifested itself in loud complaints of their relations with Denmark. On account of an almost total ignorance on the part of the Danish government in regard to the affairs of Iceland, its administration of the island has frequently been very oppressive. Among the great Icelandic patriots, who especially, or at least largely, have striven to serve their country by their literary labors, the above named Eggert Olafsson holds a conspicuous place. His chief work is a description of Iceland, written by him and Bjarne Pálsson, the result of a journey undertaken by them in 1751-1757 throughout the island for the purpose of investigating its physical and economic condition. By the publication of a number of works on practical and economic questions, Olaf Stephensson (1733-1812) and his son Magnus Stephensson (1762-1833), and particularly the latter, who was one of the most eminent representatives of the period of enlightenment in Iceland, labored zealously and efficiently for the introduction of many important reforms in the administration and in the economic conditions of the country. Jon Sigurdsson (1811-1879), who is deservedly famous on account of his extensive labors in the field of Icelandic history and antiquities, became the standard bearer of the movement that finally resulted in the law of January 2, 1871, which led to the satisfactory settlement of Iceland's political relations to Denmark.
The art of Poetry which played so conspicuous a part in mediæval Iceland, also awoke to new life after its long slumber. The exuberantly growing Latin poetry of the learned period we will not discuss, but confine ourselves to the remark that the Icelanders here also held their own as compared with other peoples, and several scholars could be mentioned who ranked high for skill in writing Latin verses.
The production of poetry in the vernacular was never wholly interrupted, but after the ancient literature had ceased to bloom it continued in that peculiar form of ballads called the Rima, of which we made mention in connection with the old skaldic lays. From the fifteenth to the beginning of the eighteenth century we meet with the singular phenomenon that a large number of Icelandic skalds busied themselves with a sort of reproduction of the sagas, a "transversing" of them, or changing them from prose to verse, and embodying their contents in so-called rimas (rhymes or ballads). This was done even before the fifteenth century, but in the above epoch it developed into great prominence.
We may take this opportunity of giving a more accurate description of these transversings. The rimas were produced according to a set of fixed rules. There is first a prelude containing a general expression of erotic sentiments. Then follows the story in a series of cantos, of which each has its own metre. This is always strophic, and the strophe generally has four lines of which each couple are alliterated, while the lines are connected by final rhymes in every conceivable way. The style in the most of the rimas is very heavy and full of metaphors either borrowed from the skaldic poetry or an imitation of it. But few specimens of rimas have been printed, but in written copies or produced with monotonous melodies, they have given pleasure to many successive generations, though the taste for them now seems to have passed away.[6]
Both the domestic family sagas (e.g., Njala) and the romantic ones which were in part imported from foreign lands (the Karlamagnus Saga and others) were transversed in this manner. A natural result of this peculiar literary development is the interesting fact that occasionally the poetic materials have passed through all the three phases possible under the circumstances described; that is, they have first been used in ancient lays, then the lays have been transprosed into sagas, and finally the sagas have again been transversed into rimas.
The composition of rimas was followed by a long line of purely lyrical poets extending down to the present. The Icelandic language during these many hundred years has been twisted and forced into the greatest variety of metrical phrases, and has thus become exceedingly flexible. It has a great abundance of grammatical forms, and, consequently, gives the poet great liberty in the arrangement of his words; furthermore, there is such a wealth of rhymes, and particularly of alliterations in the language, that they come as it were spontaneously even to an inexperienced writer of verses.
In connection with this universal taste and talent for verse-making we find an equally widespread respect for, and gratitude toward, those who in a wider and profounder sense deserve the name of poets, who not only have the gift of uniting words in rhyme and metre, but who also know how to express the thoughts and feelings of the race and to paint in true and graphic colors pictures of popular life.
In few countries in the whole world is the talent for poetry in the true sense of the word so universal as in Iceland, and nowhere else is the true poet so highly honored by his people as here. The gift of poetry is in Iceland in reality a patent of nobility which is recognized wherever the poet comes both among the rich and among the poor, and by the common peasant not less than by the scholar. In these peculiarly favorable circumstances we must certainly look for the chief explanation of the fact that this small nation during centuries of want and suffering has been able to produce a line of poets, many of whom really have claim to a prominent position in the poetic galleries of the civilized world. This opinion will be approved by every one who does not shrink from conquering the obstacles which he will meet with in a tongue which is but little known, and in the very peculiar character of that poetry, a character which is so new and strange to all who are not born Icelanders, and which in some respects is a result of the never perfectly interrupted connection with the strongly marked culture of the poetry of antiquity. These obstacles are in fact so great, that the translation of modern Icelandic poems into a modern tongue, so as to preserve not only the spirit but also the peculiar phrases and the characteristic form in which they are written, must be regarded as exceedingly difficult or even as impossible. It is a no more easy task than the translation of the ancient and mediæval Icelandic poetry. In the matter of form the Icelanders have preserved very many of the peculiarities of the ancient poetry, and thus they still consider alliteration necessary to good poetry. But modern forms of versification have also found their way to Iceland, and so we find here a strange union of the old and the new, the old alliteration blended with the modern rhymes in the same poem.
The number of Icelandic poets who have justly been held in high esteem by their people is so extraordinarily large that we cannot here give even approximately a full list of them. A catalogue of modern Icelandic poets would embrace everybody who in any way has been conspicuous in Iceland. On the one hand it is true that Iceland has not a single poet who has made poetry the chief avocation of his life, but on the other hand all the literary men of that island have also been poets. The psalmist Hallgrim Pjetursson (1614-1674) and the lyric poet Stefan Olafsson (1620-1688) must be considered the fathers of modern Icelandic poetry. Of the former, one of the greatest psalmists that ever lived, and that not only in Iceland, we have already given some account in our description of religious literature. Of Olafsson's numerous poems many are remarkable for their sparkling wit and rugged humor, while in others idyllic sentiments predominate. The above-mentioned Eggert Olafsson (1726-1767), who distinguished himself in so many other literary fields, was also a poet of decided merit, and in the eighteenth century he may be said to have had only one rival for the first place as Icelandic poet, and that was Jon Thorlaksson (1744-1819), whose original poems are marvellous for their freshness and keen wit, and who also gave the Icelanders a masterly translation of Milton's "Paradise Lost," and of Klopstock's "Messias." The greatest Icelandic poet of the present century, and perhaps in the whole field of modern Icelandic poetry is Bjarne Thorarenson (1786-1841), who in many of his poems displays a startling brilliancy, while he is at the same time exceedingly profound, touching, and tender.
The fact must not be forgotten that the strongly marked, original, Icelandic poetry has not in any way lessened the people's taste for the poetry produced in other forms and in other lands. Besides the chief works of Milton and Klopstock, already mentioned, there are also fine Icelandic translations of Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey," of a series of Shakespeare's dramas, of Tegnér's Fridthjof's Saga, and of other works.
In other branches of poetry than that of lyrics but little of note has been produced in Iceland, excepting, of course, translations. Epic poetry is represented only by the novel, "Piltur ok Stulka" (the Boy and the Girl), a fresh and charming book in the style of Auerbach's and Björnson's peasant stories, giving an interesting picture of modern life in Iceland, and a romance, "Maður ok Kona" (Man and Wife), both by Josr Thordarson. That the conditions in Iceland are about as unfavorable for the development of dramatic literature as it is possible, is evident when we consider that the whole island has not more than 70,000 people, and that only 2,000 live in its metropolis, Reykjavik. Nevertheless, several remarkable efforts have been made during the present century in the field of the drama, especially by Sigurd Pjetursson, who produced a few comedies (e.g., "Narfi," a satire on the Danish party in Iceland), and recently by Mathias Jochumsson and Endride Einarsson, who have written beautiful and original dramas on the basis of Icelandic popular tales.[7]
- ↑ Hallgrim Pjetursson: Psalterium passionale, Holar, first edition, 1660. Diarium Christianum, first edition, Holar, 1660. Jón Vidalin: Consciones passionales, Holar, first edition, 1720. Postille, Holar, 1718. Ami Helgason: Helgidaga Prèdikanir, Videy, 1822. Pètur Pètursson: Prèdikanir, Reykjavik, 1856.
- ↑ Arngrim Jonsson: Brevis commentarius de Islandia, Hafniae, 1609; Crymogæa sive rerum Isl. libri tres Hamb. 1630; Specimen Islandiæ historicum, Amstelodami, 1643. Björn Jónsson: Annales, prentader að Hrappsey, 1774. Runolf Jónsson: Recentissima antiquissimæ linguæ septentrionalis incunabula, Oxoniæ, 1668 (Hafniæ, 1651); Specimen Lexici runici, collectum a Magno Olavio, edidit Olaus Wormius, Hafniæ, 1650. Gudm. Andreæ: Lexicon Islandicum, edidit P. Resenius, Hafniæ, 1683.
- ↑ Thormpdus Torfæus: De rebus gestis Færeyensium, Hafniæ, 1695; Historia Orcadum, Hafniæ, 1697; Series dynastorum et regum Daniæ, Hafniæ, 1702; Historia Vinlandiæ, Hafniæ, 1705; Grönlandia antiqua, Hafniæ, 1706; Historia rerum Norvegicarum I-IV, Hafniæ, 1711.
- ↑ Biografiske eftevretninger om Arne Magnusen, ved Jon Olafsen med Indledning, Anmærkinnger og Tillæg af E. C. Werlauff (Nordisk Tidsskrift for Oldkyndighed III, 1 Hefte, Copenhagen, 1835).
- ↑ Much is also done in Iceland in the way of collecting and publishing statistical materials.
- ↑ How exuberantly this style of poetry must have flourished may be concluded from the fact that an industrious collector and copyist of old Icelandic books in Reykjavik made a collection of more than twelve stout, closely written quarto volumes of rimas.
- ↑ Stephan Olafsson: Ljoðmæli, Copenhagen, 1823. Milton's Paradisar missir, sem sira Jön Thorlaksson, íslenzkadi, Copenhagen, 1828. Kloppstokks Messias á Íslenzku eptir sira Jön Thorlaksson, Copenhagen, 1834-38. Kvæði Bjarna Thörarensens, Copenhagen, 1847. Snöt, nokkur kvæði eptir ýmiss skáld, edited by G. Magnnsson and J. P. Thoroddsen, Copenhagen, 1850. Jön Thordarson: Piltur og Stúlka, Reykjavik, 1850. Maður og Kona, Copenhagen, 1876. Torfhildur Holm's Brynjolfuk Steinsson (Reykjavik, 1882) is the only historical novel ever written in Icelandic and the first novel produced by an Icelandic woman.