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on the catch and haymaking, and differentiate between regions in Iceland:
for the year 1777 the catch was good, particularly in flatey, and haymak-
ing was poor in the West and south, according to Espihólsannáll.115 But
even the only annalistic writer who structures his entries with headings
like Gunnlaugur does – tómas tómasson in his Djáknaannáll – does
not have the catch and haymaking under a separate heading. It is not clear
where Gunnlaugur got the idea from to use aflabrögð ‘catch’ as a head-
ing.116 It is therefore possible that Gunnlaugur wrote annals according
to century-long traditions in his home region despite the enlightenment,
but that the agricultural-economical category of catch and farming in
Gunnlaugur’s diary and annals is perhaps inspired or strengthened by
trends of the enlightenment that eventually reached the lower strata of
society. Additional expressions of some of the enlightenment’s character-
istics could be Gunnlaugur’s optimism concerning history and his wish to
enlighten his contemporaries.
Gunnlaugur’s scribal activities seem to be motivated by personal,
temporal and geographical factors. the aftermath of enlightenment,
together with the personal influence of the Hólar teachers Halldór kon-
rektor Hjálmarsson and the Rev. Gísli jónsson from stærri-Árskógur,
might have sparked Gunnlaugur’s interest in historical research. this
study sheds more light on how the enlightenment eventually reached
and influenced the lower strata of Icelandic society at a time that is
usually connected with later historical developments. It gives additional
insights into the lives of common people and shows specific sides of
Iceland’s scholarly and cultural past. By focusing on the activities and
networks of a farmer without formal education, this study contributes
toward a clearer and more complete picture of Icelandic culture. this
article has furthermore shown that Gunnlaugur was not a passive member
of Iceland’s scribal network, but that he was an active participant who
shared his manuscript material and scribal abilities with both his local
community and scribal network. It has also been shown that this scribal
and scholarly network was deeply interconnected and consisted of both
115 see jón jóhannesson, Þorhallur Vilmundarson, and Guðrún Ása Grímsdóttir, eds., Annálar
1400–1800 (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka bókmenntafélag, 1955-87), 5:159–60.
116 He might have been inspired by Eptirmæli atjándu aldar by Magnús stephensen, which he
also mentions as one of his sources in js 334 4to 2, pp. 3–4.
GunnLAuGuR jónsson fRoM skuGGABjÖRG