RAFN, KARL CHRISTIAN, a celebrated Danish critic and archeologist, was b. at Brallesborg, in the island of Ftinen, Jan. 16,1796, and educated at the university of Copenhagen, of which he was appointed sub-librarian in 1821. Even while a boy at the gymnasium of Odense, he was distinguished by his fondness for the old Norse literature and language, and when lie became officially connected with the university,. lie under took a general revision of all the Icelandic and old Norse MSS. preserved there. It is to Rafn's unwearied exertions that Denmark owes the foundation (1825) of the " Society for Northern Antiquities," whose principal object is the publication and criticism of all documents-that can throw light on the subject of old Norse literature. To this single end Rain devoted his whole life. As secretary of this society he edited and published a great many ancient Scandinavian MSS., occupying about 70 volumes. Among his HUMWOLIS important works, we may mention a Danish translation of Norse Mythic and Romantic Sagas (3 vols., 2d ed. 1829-30); an edition (from a manuscript), with pffllologico critical remarks, of Raguar Lodbrog's death-song, under the title of Krtikanuil. sea Epicedinin Bagnaris Lodbroci, Regis Dania (Copenh.,1826); a complete collection of the Norse sagas (many of these MSS. being hitherto unedited) entitled Fornalclar-S14, ur Hordlanda (Copenh. 3 vols., 1829-30); and the Fiireyinga-Saga (1832) in Icelandic, with translations in Danish and Faroese, and a critical apparatus. Bnt his most widely known and perhaps his most interesting work is his Antiquitates Americana, seu Scrip fores Septentrionales Reruns Ante-Columbianarum in America (Copenh. 1837), in which,
from a critical examination' of numerous geographical, nautical, and astronomical data in certain Old Norse MSS., he comes to the conclusion that America was discovered by Norsemen in the 10th c., 400 years before Columbus was born; and that from the 11th to the 14th century a large tract of the North American coast had been visited and even partially colonized as far s. as Rhode Island and Massachusetts—a conclusion, it may lie added, the probability of which has been confirmed in several important points by recent topographien-antiquarian researches in these states. The subject was followed up by him and Finn Magnussen in their Historical Monuments of Greenland (3 vols., Copenh. 1838-45). Another very important work 'to which Rafn furnished a great part of the text, carefully worked up from MSS., and a Danish translation of the first three and the 11th books in parallel columns, is the great collection of historical sagas representing events that took place out of Iceland, and entitled l'orumanna Sogur (12 vols., Copenh. 1828, et seq.). He has also had a great share in drawing up and editing the Icelandic MSS. relating to the history of Russia and other eastern countries, and of which two volumes appeared at Copenhagen in 1850-52, under the title of Antiguites Busses. Rafn died at Copenhagen, Oct. 20,1864.