Jón Árnason (Author)

Jón Árnason (born August 17, 1819 in Hof bei Höfn (Southeast Iceland), † September 4, 1888 in Reykjavík ) was an Icelandic author and collector of Icelandic fairy tales and legends .

Jón Árnason

Life

From 1848 to 1887 Jón Árnason was librarian at the Abbey Library, later the National Library, the predecessor of the National Library of Iceland in Reykjavík, where his extensive collection of letters is also located. Inspired by the children's and house tales of the Brothers Grimm , Jón Árnason and Magnús Grímsson also began to collect and record folk tales . However, the response to the publication of the first volume of Icelandic folk tales in 1852 was very little. Only when the German legal historian and expert on Old Icelandic , Konrad Maurer from Munich , traveled to the island in 1858 and encouraged the two researchers in their work, they continued their work. Magnús Grímsson died in 1860 , Jón Árnason then finished the collection on his own. In 1862 and 1864, two volumes of Icelandic folk tales and fairy tales with over 1,300 pages in Icelandic were finally published in Leipzig through the mediation and active support of Maurer .

Jón Árnason also wrote a biography of Martin Luther (1852) and a story of Charlemagne (1853).

Fonts

• Jón Árnason; Magnús Grímsson (ed.): Íslenzk æfintýri. Reykjavík: 1852.
• Jón Árnason: Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri. Vol. I / II. Leipzig: JC Hinrichs, 1862/1864.

Web links

Wikisource: Jón Árnason  - Sources and full texts

• http://www.snerpa.is/net/thjod/thjod.htm Þjóðsögur. on snerpa.is (Icelandic)

Note: Icelanders are referred to by their first name or first and last name, but not just their surname. Further information can be found under Icelandic personal name .