Gripla - 2019, Qupperneq 17

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Two manuscripts in Albert’s possession on Hecla Island were written
in the Kaldrananes region during Albert’s years there: a book of rímur (Lbs
4667 4to) and a book of prose sagas (Lbs 3022 4to). The volume of rímur is a
composite manuscript, with contributions from at least four scribes (includ-
ing Albert himself),38 and is not bound in chronological order of writing.
Dated sections of the manuscripts were written in 1878–1879, but there are
later additions by Albert and a repair on f. 196 that uses a scrap of printed
English material. The manuscript contains rímur of Bálant (Ferakút), Kári
Kárason, Randver fagri, Fertram and Plató, Blómsturvallakappar, Sigurður
turnari, Hervör and Heiðrekur and Hjálmar hugumstóri.
The prose volume, Lbs 3022 4to, contains seven sagas: Marons saga
sterka, Flóres saga konunga og sona hans, Þorsteins saga Geirnefjufóstra, Sig urð-
ar saga Hlöðvissonar og Snjáfríðar, Hermanns saga og Jarlmanns, Ajax saga
frækna and Úlfs saga Uggasonar. Its main scribe is Þorsteinn Guðbrandsson
(1858–1923), who copied most of the book in 1876–1877. Árni guðmundsson
and Anna Guðmundsdóttir, who moved to Kald rananes in 1855, adopted
Þorsteinn as their foster-son. Þorsteinn be came the farmer at Kaldrananes
in 1882, moving his household to Bjarnarnes in 1894.39
Þorsteinn’s father, Guðbrandur Sturlaugsson, was a prolific scribe who
lived at Kaldrananes in 1846–1861 before moving to Hvítidalur in Saurbær.
As Driscoll notes, Guðbrandur was a well-off farmer with a reputation for
being proud and aloof.40 The oldest preserved manuscript in Guðbrandur
Sturlaugsson’s own hand is from 1869, and Driscoll’s suggestion is that
Guðbrandur’s scribal career began only after Magnús Jónsson moved to
Tjaldanes in 1867.41 A direct connection between Guðbrandur and Albert
is unlikely, but Þorsteinn did copy all but one of the sagas at his birth-
parents’ farm of Hvítidalur (he copied Marons saga sterka at Kaldrananes
in February 1877).
38 The others are Guðbrandur Guðbrandsson (1853–1920) in Kolbeinsvík in Víkursveit
in 1879, S.(?) Eiríksson and B. Sumarli[ðason]. The last-named is probably Brandur
Sumarliðason (1828–1899), who lived at Rúnkhús in Reykhólasókn in Barðastrandasýsla
in 1880. Sveinn Eiríksson (1855–1905), who lived at Reykhólar in Reykhólasókn in 1880
and emigrated to Hallson in North Dakota in 1886, is a likely candidate for Brandur’s co-
scribe.
39 Gj. G., “Þorsteinn Guðbrandsson, bóndi á Kaldrananesi,” Óðinn 21 (1925): 31–32; Jón
Guðnason, Strandamenn: Æviskrár 1703–1953 (Reykjavík: n.p., 1955), 396.
40 Driscoll, “Pleasure and pastime,” 226–32.
41 Driscoll, “Pleasure and pastime,” 236.
ALBERT JóHANNESSON AND THE SCRIBES OF HECLA ISLAND