Paper short abstract:

Presentation of a project of linking two important databases of Icelandic folktales, Sagnagrunnur and Ísmús, which share some metadata. We will present the result of an exploration of digital methods to explore these databases as a whole that will help researchers get new insight into the material.

Paper long abstract:

Over the last decade, two important digital projects have emerged in Iceland in relation to folklore material: Sagnagrunnur, a database of legends and wonder tales in printed folklore collections which also includes persons who told and collected the stories. The database also includes geographical references to places mentioned in the legends and is searchable through an online interface. Ísmús is a digital collection of audio recordings from the folklore archive of the Árni Magnússon Institute. Ísmús also includes metadata about informants and recorders. Both projects are gradually growing. The research project “Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og ævintýri: origin, context and collection” whose aim was to document the collection and publication process of Jón Árnason’s folktale collection contributed greatly to Sagnagrunnur with added letters and references to original manuscripts. Due to highly related material in these two databases the need for a joined search interface is clear. Both databases include similar material and they also share metadata about persons and places. A joined search would thus become a valuable tool, which would provide a continuity, through combining Sagnagrunnur’s data of printed tales collected in the mid nineteenth century onwards to Ísmús’s audio recordings of tales told in the late twentieth century. The work on combining these two databases is in its early stages at the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies. In the summer 2021 we will present the result of an exploration of digital methods to explore these databases as a whole that will help researchers get new insight into this material.