Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1957, Page 64

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INTRODUCTION
sists in the main of a series of separate supplements to NKK,
culled from the Kings’ Sagas, sagas of Icelanders and annals,
while the Danish history is more unified since AJ bases his work
essentially on only two sources, Skjpldunga saga and Knytlinga
saga.
In preparing these works AJ examined a large number of
manuscripts (see Ch. III) in order to gather material of import-
ance for the history of Scandinavia. It is clear that in the course
of this research the idea took shape in his mind of collecting
material at the same time for a history of his own country and
of casting it in a form answering to the scholarly requirements
of the age. We find the first suggestion of such a scheme in a
note in Appendix historiæ Norvagicæ (I 321), where AJ, speak-
ing of Porsteinn rauSr, remarks, “de cujus posteris, cum de Is-
landia et Færogia verba faciemus, plura”. In the margin however
he inserts the cautious phrase, “si qvando id erit”. Nevertheless
AJ did devote the following years to this work, which bore fruit
in his hooks Crymogæa and Gronlandia, the one on the history
of Iceland, the other on the early history of Greenland. In the
dedication in Crymogæa, AJ says expressly that he began to col-
lect material for the book while preparing his works on Scan-
dinavian history (see II 5). Cross-references between Crymogæa
and Gronlandia show that both were written more or less to-
gether1, even though Crymogæa was probably the first to be
written up. At least we know that AJ brought this finished manu-
script to Copenhagen on his voyage abroad 1602—3 with a view
to getting it published. His old friend Niels Krag had died in
the spring of 1602, but AJ showed the manuscript to Venusin,
who was to succeed Krag as Royal Historiographer, and also to
Professor Hans Poulsen Resen, at this time Rector of the Uni-
versity, and he certainly obtained through them permission to
publish the book (see II 5). But AJ did not find a publisher in
Copenhagen—why we do not know, but it may be surmised that
the interest of Danish historians in AJ’s work declined once he
had finished his books on Scandinavian history, and the history
of Iceland did not have the same direct significance for them and
1 See II 10220, 12824, 130” (in Crymogæa) ; II 25221 (in Gronlandia).