2019Jon Arnason Folk Tales Collector - 200th Anniv. - First Day Cover block of 4

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.