Anders Sørensen Vedel

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Anders Sørensen Vedel (9 November 1542 – 13 February 1616) was a priest and historian born in Vejle (from which the Vedel name comes), Denmark. He translated the Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus into Danish 1575.

As a young man he was the tutor of the astronomist Tycho Brahe on the latter's Grand Tour in Europe becoming the latter's friend.

From 1584 Vedel was the official Danish historiographer whose duty was writing the long-expected Latin continuation of Saxo’s work but he overreached himself in his attempt of doing so. He planned an ambitious work in 22 books dealing with both language and topography as well as with history. However other tasks, lack of help from secretaries, his own slowness and carefulness - and perhaps also a general underestimation of the demands of this work – led to very modest results and 1594 the task was taken away from him. Much of what he had written here was lost at the fire of Copenhagen 1728.

One spin-off from this task however survived namely his edition of a hundred Danish ballads (1591) which became a solid foundation of later knowledge of the elder Danish literary tradition. His own re-creation of some of the ballads shows his ability as a poet.