Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1943, Blaðsíða 18

XVI
hic tanta copia, vt eorum strues altissimas sub dio concinnent, atque
ita venum exponant, altitudine interdum ipsa ædium tecta superante.
Tanta etiam butyri salsi copia, vt cistis odoratis recondant longitudine
pedum quadraginta, altitudine 5, præter vsitata dolia.
After this Hondius has some verses about Iceland (from Ortelius)
by “Erasmus Michaelis”, that is to say, the Dåne Erasmus Michaelius
Lætus (Rasmus Glad, died in 1582), which present nothing new
of interest. The verses are derived from C. Erasmi Michaelii Læti
De re navtica libri iiij ... Basileæ 1573, pp. ni—112; they have
been included in many books and evidently enjoyed a certain reputa-
tion (reprinted amongst other places in borv. Thoroddsen, Lfrs.
IV 254).
There is reason to ask why Otte Krag’s extracts were made from
a book nearly 40 years old without taking any account of the
literature on Iceland which had seen the light in the interim. A
conclusive answer can hardly be made to this question; a brief survey
of the nature of this literature, however, may perhaps give some
indication of the reason.
Far from having put a stop to the fantastic tales about Iceland,
Arngrfmur Jonsson’s Brevis commentarius was followed in the year
1607—the same year that Hondius published his smaller edition of
Mercator’s Atlas—by a description of Iceland, so far the most cir-
cumstantial and at the same time in several respects the most
fantastic, viz. Dithmari Blefkenii Islandia (Lugduni Batavorum
1607). Arngrimur Jonsson had to enter the lists again to defend
his native country, this time with Anatome Blefkeniana (Typis
Holensibus 1612, Hamburgi 1613). A few years later came his third
defence (Epistola pro patria defensoria, Hamburgi 1618) directed
against one of Blefken’s echoes, David Fabricius (Van Isslandt unde
Gronlandt, 1616). These publications did not, however, prevent
Blefken’s book from obtaining an enormous circulation, being trans-
lated into many languages, and being used as a source of informa-
tion about Iceland until well on in the igth century1. Its contents
1 See E>orv. Thoroddsen, Lfrs. I 178-90 (= Gesch. I 164-75) ; 0. DaviOsson
in Timarit hins isl. bdkmenntafélags VII (1887), pp. 135—149.