Jón Árnason, Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri reprints

Record summary

Reprints and translations of Jón Árnason’s Icelandic folklore collection circulated during the requested period and preserve narratives about selkies, animal spouses, enchanted skins, disguised trolls and other human-nonhuman transformations. The collection is an important comparative source because Icelandic legends often retain distinctive relationships between landscape, kinship and supernatural transformation. It is nevertheless a nineteenth-century compilation, shaped by collectors and editors, and individual tales must be traced to manuscripts, informants or earlier printed sources where possible.