Studia Islandica - 01.06.1960, Page 46

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the period 1500—1502 and again in 1506.30 He may have
gone to Norway in 1503, returned to Iceland in 1506 and
left it again never to return in 1507. It may well be that
he took Oddur with him to Norway in 1503. This date
would accord fairly well with what the sources men-
tioned above have to say of Oddur’s youth. Gottskálk re-
turned from Norway to Iceland in 1492. Oddur, therefore,
cannot have been born earlier than 1493 and may have
been bom later or at any time during the years 1494—
1498. If he were born in 1496—1497 he would have been
six or seven years old when his uncle Guttormur may
have gone to Norway, and even if he only went to Nor-
way in 1507 he would still be a youth. His age when he
might have studied under Geble Peterson would then be
about twenty-two to twenty-eight years.
Other known dates in Oddur’s life tell us little or no-
thing about his age. He became Bishop ögmundur’s secre-
tary about 1534 or 1535. That he was then between thirty-
five and forty years old seems more likely than that he
was only about twenty. ögmundur was then advanced in
age and became blind about 1536.31 It is not unreason-
able to think that he would want a secretary of mature
age rather than one who had just turned twenty. Oddur
is first mentioned in Icelandic documents in February
1536 when he is found acting as a juryman in a suit.32
His translation of the New Testament into Icelandic was
printed at Roskilde in Denmark in 1540.33 He was made
lawman for the north and west of Iceland in 1552,31 and
died from exposure after crossing Laxá in Kjós in 1556.33
Of Oddur’s sister Guðrún practically nothing is known
beyond the fact that, while betrothed to Bishop Gizur Ein-
arsson, she bore triplets to Rev. Eysteinn Þórðarson in
1543. If Oddur was born in 1496 and Gottskálk begot
Guðrún before his consecration as bishop she must have
been born in 1497 or very early in 1498, for Gottskálk
went abroad in 1497. If born in 1497 she would have been