Gripla - 2020, Síða 125

GRIPLA124
og þrátt fyrir að honum hafi ekki enst aldur, kraftar eða tími til að vinna að útgáfu
fyrsta stóra þjóðsagnasafnsins sem út kom á íslensku verður því að líta á hann sem
frumkvöðul í þessum efnum.
S U M M A R Y
Magnús Grímsson’s Folktales: Magnús Grímsson’s Place as a Folktale Collector
in the Nineteenth Century
Keywords: Folktale collections, Jón Árnason’s folktales, Íslenskar þjóðsögur og æfin-
týri (1862–1864), the nineteenth century
In 1845 Jón Árnason (1819–1888) and Magnús Grímsson (1825–1860) agreed to
collect Icelandic folktales and poetry; they published the first printed collection
of Icelandic folktales in 1852. They had intended to continue publishing further
collections, but their first publication was poorly received, and nothing further
came of their work until the German scholar Konrad Maurer came to Iceland in
1858. He encouraged them and promised to find them a publisher in Germany.
Magnús died in 1860 so it fell to Jón to complete the project. Some have consid-
ered it something of an injustice to Magnús that his name does not appear on the
title page of the collection of Icelandic folktales that was published in 1862–1864.
This article describes Magnús’s life and work. It then investigates precisely what
Magnús’s contribution to the collection of folktales was as well as his role in the
publication of Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri itself, which has always been associ-
ated with Jón Árnason. The article concludes that only about 150 of the over 1,200
items in the folktale collection of 1862–1864 can be traced directly to Magnús’s
work. Moreover, Magnús was not very active in the further collection of mate-
rial inspired by Jón Árnason’s famous letter calling for further collection of tales
(“Hugvekja”) nor in the preparation of the volumes for publication. Magnús was,
however, the first to collect folktales in Iceland in a systematic way in the nine-
teenth century. Although he did not live long enough or have the time and strength
to work in any major way on the first large edition of folktales to be published in
Icelandic, he must be considered a trailblazer in this work.
Rósa Þorsteinsdóttir
stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum
skrifstofa Árnagarði
við suðurgötu
102 Reykjavík
rosa.thorsteinsdottir@arnastofnun.is