Autograph letter signed.
1½ pp. on bifolium. 4to. With autograph address (folded letter).
€ 6,500.00
To the archaeologist, Germanist, and folklorist Johann Gustav Gottlieb Büsching in Breslau concerning casts of stones at Willingshausen Castle. Wilhelm Grimm’s treatise Über deutsche Runen (1821) represents the first German study of runology. Since the use of runic script in Central Europe ended around AD 700 with Christianization, scholarly engagement with runes was more common in Scandinavia. No runic monuments were known in Germany until a childhood friend of the Grimm brothers discovered supposed runestones on his estate. Wilhelm, however, considered the inscriptions to be "random scribbling" and limited his study to written sources - quite in contrast to his colleague Professor Dietrich Christoph Rommel, who regarded the finds as a scholarly sensation. It later emerged that the markings were in fact worm traces (German Digital Library, "Runes", online). Büsching, who from 1817 to 1825 was engaged in building the antiquities collection of the University of Breslau, maintained an active correspondence with antiquarians, scholars, and collectors to obtain casts.
Slightly stained and creased; a tear caused by opening the seal has been neatly repaired, with insignificant loss of letters.
