Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1943, Síða 24

XXII
his family, who play a conspicuous part in the last part of Saxo’s
work. Thus there is nothing in this corresponding to the references
made in the present treatise to the “Conjectanea”. However, we know
from another place that Brynjolfur long continued to pursue these
studies and no doubt he had various drafts or at any rate plans for
them lying among his papers. The biographer of Brynjolfur, Torfi
Jonsson, says that the bishop had planned ten “pericula” to Saxo,
but only finished three1. From the later correspondence of Bryn-
jolfur we know that long after this time he had a third section of his
Conjectanea lying ready. In a letter to the Royal Librarian in Copen-
hagen Professor Villum Lange, the bishop thus mentions (10/7 1656)
“Periculum tertium Conjectaneorum Saxonianorum, qvod penes me
servo”2, and in a letter to Torfæus from 11/7 1663 he gives as an
excuse for not thinking of his explanations of Saxo both the duties
of his office and increasing age, as well as his want of properly quali-
fied help3.
From the references in the treatise below it will be seen that at
any rate the following points were to be dealt with in these Con-
jectanea :
x) The discovery and the names of Iceland (pp. 2314 and 28®).
2) The question as to whether Iceland is the Thule of antiquity
(p. 242).
3) Jotunheimar and the kingdom of Hel (p. 2511).
4) The heathen notions of ghosts and elves (345-6).
All these points evidently belong to Saxo’s Præfatio, and pre-
sumably more especially to his section upon Iceland. Whether they
were treated in the third “periculum”, now lost, cannot of course
be said with any certainty.
The information given in the two present treatises can, roughly, be
divided into two groups: 1) The physical conditions and the popula-
tion of the country, and 2) its history and literature. The particulars
1 Jon Halldorsson, Biskupasogur II 353. Torfi Jonsson says, wrongly, that
the finished pericula were sent to Otte Krag. Jon Halldorsson’s statement about
Brynjolfur’s Pericula in Saxonem, in Biskupasogur I 279, must be due to a mis-
apprehension.
2 Safn Fræ5afélagsins XII 70.
a Ibid. 161-62.