SOPHUS

BUGGE (1833—1907)  , Norwegian philologist, was born at Laurvik, Norway, on the 5th of January 1833 . He was educated at Christiania, Copenhagen and Berlin, and in 1866 he became professor of comparative philology and Old Norse at Christiania University . In addition to collecting Norwegian folk-songs and traditions, and writing on Runic inscriptions, he made considerable contributions to the study of the Celtic, Romance, Oscan, Umbrian and Etruscan languages . He was the author of a very large number of books on philology and folklore . His principal work, a critical edition of the elder Edda (Norroen Fornkvoedi), was published at Christiania in 1867 . He maintained that the songs of the Edda and the earlier sagas were largely founded on Christian and Latin tradition imported into Scandinavian literature by way of England . His writings also include Gamle Norske Folkeviser (1858), a collection of Old Norse folk, songs; Bidrag til den aeldste skaldedigtnings kistorie (Christiania, 1894); Helge-digtene i den Aeldre Edda (Copenhagen, 1896, Eng. trans., The Home of the Eddic Poems, 1899) ; Norsk Sagafortaelling op Sagaskrivning i Island (Christiania, 1901), and various books on Runic inscriptions . He died on the 8th of July 1907 . For a further list of his works see J . B . Halvorsen, Norsk Forfatter-Lexikon, vol. i . (Christiania, 1885) .