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preserving Leppalúðakvæði,27 and it could be argued that these verses in
Grýlukvæði are a later addition that originate from Leppalúðakvæði — rather
than the other way around. If séra Gvöndur is absent from the scene, the
possibility arises that Grýlukvæði could have been composed before 1634,
with material added freely to the narrative until it measured a full 99 stan-
zas by the mid-nineteenth century.
neither Gissur sveinsson nor the scribe of Add. 11.177 state the author
of Grýlukvæði. even in younger manuscripts from the nineteenth century,
Grýlukvæði is generally not associated with a specific author. In AM 960
4to 6, a transcription of an oral performance dating from 1847, the poem is
“attributed to” (eignað) Guðmundur erlendsson (7v), but this attribution
is in a separate clause at the end of the transcription. the clause unfortu-
nately does not specify whether the informant herself (Guðrún jónsdóttir,
a married farm worker on the syðra-krossanes farm in eyjafjörður) is the
source of this information. of the manuscripts surveyed in connection
with this article, only js 510 8vo states directly and without reservation
that Guðmundur erlendsson is its author.28
As mentioned earlier, the first known attribution of Grýlukvæði to
Guðmundur erlendsson is in Páll Vídalín’s Recensus poetarum et scriptorum
Islandorum hujus et superioris seculi. In Þorsteinn Pétursson’s translation
of this work, Guðmundur erlendsson is credited with composing “Grÿlu
qvæde (qvod in suo genere vel pulcerrimum Carmen)”.29 Páll Vídalín does
not specifically identify this grýlukvæði, but he did borrow AM 147 8vo
from Árni Magnússon in 1710 (a loan recorded in a note inserted at the
front of the manuscript) and thus had seen the same version of the poem as
printed here above. that Páll Vídalín was referring to a second and now-
27 Lbs 450 8vo, a manuscript dating from the eighteenth century but probably not written by
jón egilsson from stóra-Vatnshorn in Haukadalur as stated in the manuscript catalogue,
cf. jón samsonarson, “Leppalúði Hallgríms Péturssonar,” 43.
28 “[o]rt af s. Guðm. á felli.” js 510 8vo, 165.
29 Páll Vídalín, Recensus poetarum et scriptorum Islandorum hujus et superioris seculi, vol. 1,
Texti, ed. jón samsonarson, stofnun Árna Magnússonar á íslandi, Rit, vol. 29 (Reykjavík:
stofnun Árna Magnússonar á íslandi, 1985), 40. All but a few pages of Páll Vídalín’s
original Latin text have been lost, and this translation by Þorsteinn Pétursson and Hálfdan
einarsson’s abridged transcription form the bulk of jón samsonarson’s edition. only
in Þorsteinn Pétursson’s translation do references to individual works by Guðmundur
erlendsson appear. Þorsteinn adds a number of works by Guðmundur erlendsson to Páll
Vídalín’s list in his Lærdómssaga, js 30 4to, dated 1780, cf. Páll Vídalín, Recensus, 40.
GRýLA In sLÉttuHLíÐ
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