Jón Árnason’s Icelandic Sea-Monster Traditions

Record summary

Jón Árnason’s Icelandic folklore collection, published in the 1860s, includes traditions concerning coastal beings and sea monsters such as the hafmaður, hafgufa and other marine figures. These materials are important for comparing how oral narratives were collected, translated and classified during nineteenth-century nationalism. They also preserve motifs involving dangerous waters, fishing communities and encounters with nonhuman beings. The collection is not a field log of verified animals: its texts passed through informants, editorial selection and literary shaping, and individual variants may be difficult to date or attribute.