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6. Conclusion
Ásgrímur Magnússon’s presence in the Grýlukvæði long ascribed to Guð-
mundur erlendsson underlines that Icelandic poets of the seventeenth
century did not operate in a literary void. At the same time, it demon-
strates the significance of marital ties not only in the distribution of
manuscripts, as examined by susanne Arthur,44 but also in literary ac-
tivities at large. such ties play a complex and often overlooked role in the
lives of Iceland’s authors and poets and the later dissemination of their
work. Magnús jónsson, for example, calls into question jón Halldórsson’s
account of Brynjólfur sveinsson’s legendary “discovery” of the young
Hallgrímur Pétursson during Brynjólfur’s years in denmark (in which
Brynjólfur meets Hallgrímur entirely by coincidence and is spontaneously
inspired by the boy’s keen tongue to enrol him in the cathedral school in
Copenhagen), pointing out that Hallgrímur was Brynjólfur’s sister-in-law’s
nephew.45 the same Þorbjörg Guðmundsdóttir who linked Höfðaströnd
and Önundarfjörður through her marriage to jón sveinsson may have
used her influence with her husband and brother-in-law to ensure that
her brother’s child did not end his days as a mistreated blacksmith’s ap-
prentice in faraway Glückstadt. A less dramatic example is the preserva-
tion of works by Hallur Ögmundarson in AM 622 4to; Guðrún nordal
suggests that the scribe, Gísli jónsson, chose to include these particular
poems because Hallur was an illustrious relative of his (future) wife,
kristín eyjólfsdóttir.46 If Valgerður and Herdís in Grýlukvæði are in-
deed Ásgrímur’s daughters, this confirms that Grýlukvæði was composed
no more than ten years before Leppalúðakvæði and provides further evi-
dence for the literary interactions between Guðmundur erlendsson and
Hallgrímur Pétursson proposed by Þórunn sigurðardóttir47 — and pos-
sibly widens the circle to include Ásgrímur as well.
44 Arthur, “the Importance of Marital and Maternal ties,” 221–22.
45 Magnús jónsson, Hallgrímur Pétursson: Ævi hans og starf, 2 vols. (Reykjavík: H.f. Leiftur,
1947), 1:33–34.
46 Guðrún nordal, “Á mörkum tveggja tíma: kaþólskt kvæðahandrit með hendi siðbótar-
manns, Gísla biskups jónssonar,” Gripla 16 (2005): 222.
47 Þórunn sigurðardóttir, “Hallgrímur með ‘síra Guðmund erlendsson í felli í bak og fyrir’,”
52–54.
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