Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana. Supplementum - 01.06.1958, Side 290

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while copying his rough sketches at home; one of these is extant.—The manuscripts are described:
topographical order of drawings arbitrary.
In examining Skonvig’s drawings the reader gradually gains an insight into the first principles
of rune drawing; concrete examples indicate the degree of Skonvig’s accuracy both in comparison
with more recent draughtsmen and with modern “rune drawing”, the retouched photograph, i.e.
a photograph of the runic monument in which the runes are touched up on the monument itself.
In comparison with draughtsmen of the following centuries, not only Skonvig’s but also the ac-
complishments of the draughtsmen concerned are analysed. Apart from “free-lances”, these are
Torben Hasebard, Bertel Knudsen, Albert Holst, Laurids Bording, “the Bornholm draughts-
man”, Hans Berntsen Mejer, Soren Abildgaard, Martin Friedrich Arendt, Rasmus Henrik Kruse,
Chr. Zeuthen, Heinrich Hansen, Jacob Kornerup, Magnus Petersen and a few others of less im-
portance. The pictorial survey is arranged in such a way that the illustrated volume, Skonvig I,
contains Skonvig’s drawings (and text) in juxtaposition with Worm’s “wood cuts” and the
author’s photographs of the retouched or unretouched monument concerned, sometimes supple-
mented by a drawing from Soren Abildgaard or with one from Kruse, Kornerup or Magnus Pe-
tersen etc, all according to the suitability of the material in question. In this way the volume of
illustrations helps to give a comprehensive survey of the work of our Danish rune-copyists
through the ages. In the volume containing the text (Skonvig II), the individual drawings are
dealt with in the first three chapters in such a way that the author’s readings are advanced as
the basic form, then follow Skonvig’s and if necessary other draughtsmen’s readings, together
with their deviations from the “basic form”. The author attempts to find by comparison the
reasons for the faulty readings by Skonvig and the others. Most often the lighting conditions are
to blame, combined with the draughtsmen’s inadequate understanding of the problems of the task,
with their lack of knowledge of the language and contents of the inscriptions.
SECTION ONE. SURVEY ON SKONVIG’S DRAWINGS OF THE THREE DANISH
MANUSCRIPTS A.M. 366, 367 and 369 in folio, p. 19-104.
Chapter 1. A.M. 366 in fol. Lolland-Funen, p. 20-39. 12 inscriptions, three of which are without
runes: Lasse Jensen’s gravestone from 1408, now disappeared, in Sakskobing, the oldest known
gravestone in this country bearing a Danish inscription (apart from runic gravestones), the Jul-
skov cross, also disappeared, a Gotland cross from 1442, which Emike Kaas of Gelskov, the
feudal tenant of Gotland (1576-84), had brought home to Julskov in Funen from that island,
finally an incomplete drawing of Bishop Gisike’s interesting building inscription on St. Knud’s
Church in Odense—this drawing was up to now unknown to research—, which makes a positive
contribution to the understanding of the condition of the inscription in 1627.
In examining the first drawing in the manuscript, the Lolland Tillitse stone, there is an oppor-
tunity of seeing Worm’s way of working and Worm as a reader of runes in the field, since he
himself, with Skonvig’s drawing in his hands (and this can be proved), examined the inscription
and revised the reading, but with poor result. By imagining the arms of the Urne family on the
back of the stone Worm shows characteristics which must be considered regrettable in a practical