Gripla - 20.12.2013, Page 258

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there are a considerable number of diary entries noting when daði came
to visit, starting in 1847. daði stayed usually overnight, for example 19–20
october 1851.101 there are furthermore two extant newsletters, fréttabréf,
that he sent to daði. the letters, contained in Lbs 1236 4to, are dated 18
december 1848 and 16 july 1849 respectively, and are about accidents,
deaths, office appointments, other noteworthy incidents, etc.: in other
words, topics that Gunnlaugur used in his own annals. this information
was of interest to daði, too, and he may have used it in his own research.
such newsletters were a popular means of circulating information, and an
abundance of them are still extant today, for example newsletters sent to
Halldór Hjálmarsson, which are now part of the manuscript íB 713 8vo.
newsletters are a material embodiment of the past scribal and scholarly
network of Iceland, and as described above, Gunnlaugur utilised newslett-
ers for his Aldarfarsbók.102
Another person who was to some degree influenced by Gunnlaugur is
his nephew sigmundur Pálsson from Ljótsstaðir (1823–1905). sigmundur
grew up at the home of the Rev. Gísli jónsson, mentioned previously as an
influence on Gunnlaugr’s work; Gísli was sigmundur’s teacher until 1844,
when the latter went to study at the school in Bessastaðir. He returned to
the north in 1850, became a merchant and hreppstjóri ‘district officer’ and
produced handwritten newspaper-like letters that were circulated in the
area.103 together with his paternal uncle, Gunnlaugur, sigmundur is the
scribe of two historical manuscripts, Lbs 1261 4to and Lbs 1301 4to. the
latter was described above; it contains the Aldarfarsbók and sigmundur
took over as scribe on p. 251. Lbs 1261 4to was written between 1840 and
1870, according to the catalogue of the Landsbókasafn,104 and consists of
five loose booklets with lists of students, teachers and appointments of
parish priests. the first and fourth booklets were written by Gunnlaugur
101 see Lbs 1588 8vo, fol. 443v:26–27.
102 Without an institutionalised framework for research, the Brothers Grimm used letters
as a form of scholarly communication and to acquire source materials, see Lothar Bluhm,
Die Brüder Grimm und der Beginn der deutschen Philologie: Eine Studie zu Kommunikation
und Wissenschaftsbildung im frühen 19. Jahrhundert, spolia Beroliensia, vol. 11 (Hildesheim:
Weidmann, 1997). the parallels to the situation in Iceland, that had hardly any public
schools and no university until the nineteenth century, are striking.
103 see eiríkur kristinsson, Skagfirzkar æviskrár: Tímabilið 1890–1910 (Akureyri: sögufélag
skagfirðinga, 1964), 1:256–57.
104 see Páll eggert ólason, Skrá um handritasöfn Landsbókasafns, 1:486.