Gripla - 2019, Síða 14

GRIPLA14
contractually bound to work for the farmer.22 Albert had not yet reached
the age of confirmation and worked at Geitafell as a léttadrengur “light-
work boy” in the household of Jóhannes ólafsson.23
Growing up in such poverty, Albert had little hope of formal schooling.
Many Icelandic families did prioritize literacy despite severe poverty, and
some children of low socioeconomic status did become fluent self-taught
writers.24 Before 1880, however, households had no legal obligation to
provide minors with an education beyond basic reading skills.25 In 1840,
Ögmundur Sigurðsson, the local minister for Vatnsnes, reported that only
30 of his parishioners could write (including himself).26 Albert could well
have reached early adulthood before he learned to write.
According to the parish records, Albert could spell by age 6. He read
haltingly by age 9 and well by age 13.27 He was confirmed on June 29, 1862,
and was characterized by the local minister as a fluent reader with a quiet
personality.28 His older brothers Jóhann and Sveinn were not proficient
childhood readers: Jóhann read hesitantly at age 15 and Sveinn could do no
more than spell at age 9.29
22 A húsmaður had some limited means of supporting himself, and was not the recipient of
poor-relief. Loftur Guttormsson, Bernska, ungdómur og uppeldi á einveldisöld: Tilraun til-
félagslegrar og lýðfræðilegrar greiningar, (Reykjavík: Sagnfræðistofnun háskóla íslands,
1983),". See also Arnljótur ólafsson, “Um ómagaframfærslu,” Andvari 14.1 (1888): 198–
99.
23 In the 1860 national census, 535 boys were listed as léttadrengur. They received less pay than
a regular farmhand but carried out lighter tasks.
24 Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon and Davíð ólafsson, Minor Knowledge and Microhistory, 105–51;
Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon and Davíð ólafsson, “Barefoot Historians: Education in Iceland
in the Modern Period,” Writing Peasants: Studies on Peasant Literacy in Early Modern
Northern Europe, ed. by Klaus-Joachim Lorenzen-Schmidt and Bjørn Poulsen (Århus:
Landbohistorisk Selskab, 2002), 175–209.
25 Loftur Guttormsson, “Lög um uppfræðing barna í skript og reikningi nr. 2/1880.”
26 Ögmundur Sigurðsson, “Tjarnarsókn á Vatnsnesi, 1840,” Sýslu- og sóknarlýsingar Hins
íslenzka bókmenntafélags, ed. by Jón Eyþórsson, vol. 1, Húnavatnssýsla (Akureyri: Bóka -
út gáfan Norðri, 1950), 39. The national census that same year puts the parish’s population
at 135, of whom 90 had reached the age of 13. Thus, only a third of youths and adults were
literate in the modern sense of the word.
27 Þí BC/2-1-1, Sóknarmannatal Tjarnar á Vatnsnesi 1824–1839, 1842, 1845 og 1848–1853,
184–85; Þí BC/3-1-1, Sóknarmannatal Tjarnar á Vatnsnesi 1854–1868, 12–13, 42–43.
28 “Kann og les vel. Skilningsdaufur. Hæglátur.” Þí BA/4-1-1, Prestsþjónustubók Tjarnar á
Vatnsnesi 1816–1863, 42.
29 Þí BC/2-1-1, Sóknarmannatal Tjarnar á Vatnsnesi 1824–1839, 1842, 1845 og 1848–1853,
152–53.