Anonymous: Ny tiender ... Om saadanne græsshopper ([Copenhagen: Hans Vingaard,] c. 1542)

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Anonymous: Ny tiender ... Om saadanne græsshopper ([Copenhagen: Hans Vingaard,] c. 1542)

 

This small print (LN 274), probably made in Copenhagen in 1542 (not 1562 as stated on the binding), is the oldest surviving printed newsletter in Danish. It was translated from German and tells the story of a swarm of grasshoppers that caused damage to crops and livestock in Schlesien.

According to the title this is “True and horrible tidings … Of such grasshoppers which no one has seen before” (Sandrue oc forferdelige Ny tiender … Om saadanne græsshopper som ingen haffuer set tilforn). The attack takes on almost Biblical dimensions. The grasshoppers are depicted as monsters with faces and “four sharp teeth”, and the animals that eat them, die instantaneously.

Only one copy of the newsletter is preserved, and it is here published as a digital facsimile.



References:

Henrik Horstbøll: Menigmands medie (Det Kongelige Bibliotek / Museum Tusculanums Forlag, 1999), p. 356ff.

P.M. Stolpe: Dagspressen i Danmark (rep. Rosenkilde and Bagger 1977, 1st ed. 1878), I, p. 41, VII.

Lauritz Nielsen: Hans Vingaard. Et Bidrag til Danmarks ældre Bogtrykkerhistorie. Nordisk Tidskrift för Bok- och Biblioteksväsen III, 1916, pp. 91-111.