Gripla - 2019, Blaðsíða 15
15
Like many farms in Iceland, more than one tenant household lived
at Geitafell. In 1848, Sigurður Sigurðsson (1820–1882) and the widow
Magdalena Tómasdóttir (1817–1903) moved from Tunga to Geitafell with
two of Magdalena’s children and their infant daughter Kristín. Sigurður
and Magdalena remained at Geitafell until 1852. A unique perspective on
Albert’s childhood can be found in an essay written by their second-young-
est daughter, ólöf Sigurðardóttir (1857–1933). Geitafell was Sigurður’s
childhood home, but not a happy one: ólöf states candidly that he had
been so maltreated in childhood that he never fully became a man.30
According to ólöf, neither of her parents could write, and only her father
could read, although her mother had a reputation for being very intelligent
and had memorized an enormous amount of material.31
Only one of ólöf’s nine siblings who survived infancy received formal
instruction in writing and arithmetic: one boy spent a half-month learn-
ing these skills from the local parson. ólöf and her other siblings were all
self-taught writers, one as an adult man. ólöf recalled learning to use an
ink pen by copying the writing on an old letter to her mother. Her mother
later procured a model alphabet (forskrift) for ólöf.32
An indication of the patchy, self-taught nature of Albert’s own early
education is his system of writing page numbers over 1000 as 1000-1,
1000-2, etc. (rather than 1001, 1002), reflecting the conventions of spoken
Icelandic (i.e., þúsund og eitt, “one-thousand-and-one”). Punctuation marks
(supplied in this article as part of normalization to modern Icelandic) are
virtually non-existent.
From Vatnsnes to Kaldrananes
In 1866 at age 19, Albert Jóhannesson found stable employment in Kald-
rananes in the Westfjords, a small farming and fishing district. His employ-
ers, Sigurður Gíslason and Guðrún Jónsdóttir, lived at Bær in Selströnd,
one of the largest farms in the area. Albert was hired as a labourer but may
have worked seasonally on a shark fishing crew, since the household at Bær
was one of several in Kaldrananes to engage in shark fishing.33
30 ólöf Sigurðardóttir, “Bernskuheimilið mitt,” Eimreiðin 12.2 (1906): 110.
31 Parish records confirm that Magdalena was illiterate.
32 ólöf Sigurðardóttir, “Bernskuheimilið mitt,” 108.
33 Már Jónsson, “Hákarlaveiðar í Strandasýslu á öðrum fjórðungi 19. aldar,” Söguþing 2012:
Ráðstefnurit (Reykjavík: Sagnfræðistofnun, 2013), 16.
ALBERT JóHANNESSON AND THE SCRIBES OF HECLA ISLAND