Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.10.1967, Blaðsíða 295

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de geniis et spectris, haud raro in Islandia sese offerentibus. This MS was
also destroyed in the fire of 1728. Resen made use of it in his description of
Iceland, where it is quoted under various names. From Resen’s quotations,
which are printed in the paper from a transcript made by J. Brunsmann
(1637-1707), it can be seen that the work was divided into chapters, of
which 1-4 are quoted. Chapter 1 dealt with ghosts of the dead who appeared
without causing harm, Chapters 2 and 3 with destructive spirits or ghosts,
Chapter 4 with witchcraft and exorcism. For a great part the work was
made up of stories.
Årni Magnusson (1663-1730), who knew not only P. Syv’s MS of Historia
geniorum but also Resen’s MS of De geniis et spectris, says that both MSS
contained the same work and this claim is supported when comparison is
made of Syv’s and Resen’s quotations. On the other hånd, according to
Ami Magnusson, Syv’s text consisted of seven chapters, whereas Resen only
refers to Chapters 1-4. It is not certain how this divergence is to be explained.
It is possible that the four first chapters were particularly suited to Resen’s
end, a description of Icelandic superstition, but it is also conceivable that
the division into chapters varied in the two MSS or altematively that the
one MS contained three chapters that were lacking in the other.
Resen’s MS De geniis et spectris was seen by two other Icelandic scholars,
Påll Vidalin (1667-1727) and Jon I>orkelsson (1697-1759) and they both
later referred to it from memory. Påll Vidalin read the MS when he
was a student in Copenhagen (1685—88) and referred to the work in his
rough draft for a book, Recensus scriptorum et poetarum Islandorum seculi
XVI et XVII. The original Latin draft has been lost but there survive an
excerpt in Latin made by Halfdan Einarsson (1732—85) in JS 569 4to and a
translation into Icelandic made by t>orsteinn Pétursson (1710-85) in MS
Bor. 66 (Bodleian Library) and JS 30 4to. Jon Porkelsson’s reference to De
geniis et spectris is contained in his work Specimen Islandiæ non-barbaræ,
which survives in the author’s own hånd. Påll Vidalin and Jon Lorkelsson
have very little to reveal about the contents of De geniis et spectris. It
would seem from their remarks, however, that the terms genii and spectra
also included elves (ålfar, ålfafolk), although this does not appear from
Resen’s quotations. Påll Vidalin’s remarks seem to indicate that the author
wrote “pro alfis”, and his attitude towards the elves was then probably
approximately the same as that of the priest Einar GuOmundsson (still living
1651) who wrote a “tractatus de scopicolarum natura”, a work which is now
only known from a few excerpts in the earliest redaction of Th. Torfæus’
Series Dynastarum et Regum Daniæ, 1664 (Torfæus borrowed the MS of
this tractatus from GuSbrandur Jonsson of Vatnsfjor&ur, who was a student
in Copenhagen in the years 1663-65). Einar Guåmundsson claimed that the
elves were physical beings, created by God and resembling human beings
in their nature. It is not, however, possible to demonstrate any connec-
tion between this tractatus and De geniis et spectris on the basis of the
few excerpts from the two works that survive.