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tury) and the south (seventeenth century) became more active.76 secondly,
and more importantly, women, especially those of some of the most
influential families in Iceland, played a significant role in the distribution
of texts by forming links between families or by inheriting and passing
down manuscripts. some of these women, such as kristín Björnsdóttir
(vatnsfjarðar-kristín), ólöf ríka Loftsdóttir, Ragnheiður Pétursdóttir á
rauðum sokkum, and Helga Magnúsdóttir, were probably also involved in
important family matters. the first, vatnsfjarðar-kristín, arranged at least
one of her children’s marriages77 and managed the family farm after her
husband’s death.78 the second, ólöf ríka, accompanied her husband Björn
Þorleifsson on travels abroad, allegedly made sure he was avenged after he
was killed by english traders, paid ransom to free her son Þorleifur, and
pursued and eventually overcame the english with the help of her sons.
she reportedly took some of the traders as prisoners and let them work
as slaves on her farm at skarð at skarðsströnd.79 the third, Ragnheiður
Pétursdóttir á rauðum sokkum, was the matriarch of the svalbarð family,
one of the richest and most influential families in Iceland during the six-
76 tereza Lansing noticed in her research of manuscripts containing Hrólfs saga kraka that
manuscripts containing this saga disappeared almost entirely from the south after the
seventeenth century and production moved to the east instead (Ibid., 66). silvia Hufnagel
(personal communication) observed that eighteenth-century manuscripts containing Sörla
saga sterka originated from the southeast, northwest, and west. since this article deals only
with manuscripts up to the late seventeenth century, it is at this point not necessary to
include their findings here.
77 see fn. 13.
78 Agnes s. Arnórsdóttir, “‘eigi skal gráta Björn bónda heldur safna liði’ ólöf ríka, goðsögn
og saga,” 33–34.
79 for these and more details on ólöf ríka Loftsdóttir’s biography, see Ibid. and einar G.
Pétursson, “fróðleiksmolar um skarðverja,” Hulin Pláss. Ritgerðasafn gefið út í tilefni sjötugs-
afmælis höfundar 25. júlí 2011, ed. Guðrún Ása Grímsdóttir, stofnun Árna Magnússonar í
íslenskum fræðum, Rit 79 (Reykjavík: stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum,
2011), 238–243. Agnes s. Arnórsdóttir mentions that Ingibjörg Pálsdóttir, ólöf ríka’s
mother, was apparently also not afraid to take matters into her own hands, cf. Agnes s.
Arnórsdóttir, “‘eigi skal gráta Björn bónda heldur safna liði,’” 22. It is also worth mention-
ing that a collection of confessions, the so-called skriftamál Ólafar [Ólöf’s Confession] or
Confessio turpissima [A Most Shameful Confession], surviving in an eighteenth-century paper
manuscript (js 308 8vo), have been attributed to ólöf ríka Loftsdóttir, see Ibid., 30–31 and
Helga kress, “Confessio turpissima. um skriftamál ólafar ríku Loftsdóttur,” Ný Saga 11
(1999): 4. the confessions are so explicit in context that the editors of the DI refused to
print parts of the text. Ibid., 6; DI 4, 241 fn. 1. for a detailed discussion and transcription
of the Confessio turpissima, see Helga kress, “Confessio turpissima.”