Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1943, Side 11

IX
German by Gories Peerse, a shipmaster from Hamburg, first pub-
lished in Hamburg about 1561, and since appearing in several im-
pressions1. The poem does not exhibit any great knowledge of the
printed descriptions of Iceland, but the author’s account abounds
with misunderstandings and exaggerations and testifies to a sublime
contempt for the peculiar island people. At its best the poem conveys
an idea of the views foreign traders and seamen at that time held
about the country and its inhabitants.
Thirty years later this poem became the chief inducement for
the young Amgrimur Jonsson (1568-1648)2 to write his first book,
Brevis commentarius de Islandia, which appeared in 1593. In this
he refutes the fantastic tales found in the earlier descriptions of Ice-
land and especially tums against Gories Peerse. The book is ex-
clusively of a controversial character and gives no actual account
of the country or the people; such an account was never written by
Arngrimur though there was no lack of invitations to do so both
from his fellow countrymen and from foreign friends. It is to be
deplored that no actual description of Iceland from the hånd of an
Icelander appeared at this time, for such an account would probably
have had a greater effect than Arngrimur Jonsson’s polemical writ-
ings, and it is doubly to be regretted since we now know that such
a description did exist but did not attain publication until our cen-
tury, and then only in a fragmentary shape3.
The man who had especially encouraged Amgrimur Jånsson to
publish Brevis commentarius, the masterful bishop of Holar Gu5-
brandur borlåksson (1542-1627), had also in another way con-
tributed to increase the knowledge of the outside world of Iceland
and Icelandic manners and customs. He was the first to determine
1 See f>orv. Thoroddsen, Lfrs. I 173-178 (= Gesch. I 159-64); Hamburg
und Island, 1930, pp. 13-14.
2 On Arngrimur Jonsson’s life and works see t>orv. Thoroddsen, Lfrs. I 217-38
(= Gesch. I 199-218), and especially P. E. Olason, Menn og menntir IV, 1926,
85-234; Monumenta typographica Islandica VI, 1942, Introduction.
3 I.e. the Skålholt headmaster SigurSur Stefånsson’s Qualiscunque descriptio
Islandiæ, written almost at the same time as Brevis commentarius. It remained
little known in the I7th century and was regarded as lost later on, until a de-
fective manuscript of it was discovered in this century at Hamburg, where it
was published by Fr. Burg in 1928.