Jon Arnason Folk Tales Collector - 200th Anniv.

Jón Árnason (1819-1888) was an Icelandic scholar who collected orally transmitted folk tales and legends. Jón was born in Skagaströnd in northern Iceland and educated at the Latin School in Bessastaðir. He was the first librarian at what later became the National Library of Iceland in Reykjavik and also the first curator of the Icelandic Antiquities Collection, which became the National Museum of Iceland when it was established in 1863. In 1845 Jón and Magnús Grímsson, a fellow student in Bessa- staðir, inspired by the brothers Grimm’s Fairy Tales, started collecting folk tales.

The collection was published in 1852 and was the first collection of its kind in Icelandic. Professor Konrad Maurer (1823-1902), a German scholar, toured the country in 1858 and encouraged them to resume collecting. When Magnús Grímsson died in 1860, Jón finished the collection on his own. With the aid and initiative of President Jón Sigurðsson and Professor Maurer the collection was published in two volumes in 1862 and 1864 under the name Icelandic Folk Tales and Legends. The complete collection was reissued in 1954-1964. The stamp motif features the legend of the elves in Tungustapi, drawing on illustrations of Icelandic folk Tales by painter Ásgrímur Jónsson.