Greinar (Vísindafélag Íslendinga) - 01.01.1943, Page 153

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Hólar, Guðbrandur Þorláksson (bishop from 1571—4.627),
his father Pétur Guðmundsson and bishop Guðbrandur
Þorláksson being cousins. Pétur Guðmundsson was a poor
man of little note. The two brothers, Pétur and Hallgrím-
ur Guðmundsson, lived at Hof at Höfðaströnd. But bishop
Guðbrandur Þorláksson engaged his cousin Pétur Guð-
mundsson as sexton at Hólar. We do not know whether
Hallgrímur Pétursson was born at Hof or at the episcopal
seat of Hólar, but he was born in the year 1614.
It might be expected, that it would not have been diffi-
cult for this gifted boy, a close relation of the bishop him-
self, to attain to great fame and learning, being brought
up at this great seat of learning. According to tradition
he entered school when quite young. The bishop was then,
it is true, very old, and was paralysed by a stroke at the
time when Hallgrímur Pétursson began his school career
and died a little later. His family however remained
in residence at Hólar and his daughter’s son, Þorlákur
Skúlason, became bishop after him.
Hallgrímur Pétursson would no doubt have enjoyed the
protection and frendship of this cousin of his, who was far
closer to him in years and an excellent man. We know very
little of Hallgrímur Pétursson from this period, but this
much is certain, that suddenly he crops up abroad in Den-
mark or Germany, staying alternately with a coal mer-
chant in Gliickstadt or with a blácksmith in Copenhagen.
What had happened? Nothing but this: Hallgrímur Pét-
ursson had embarked on his poetical career, a course from
which he never deviated during the rest of his life. We
are told that, like so many Icelandic poets before and
after him, he made ditties about the bishop’s household
at Hólar.
But, “the ditty often becomes in his hand sharp as a
bayonet’’; and there are few who have known as well as
Hallgrímur Pétursson how to sharpen this weapon. Yet
he did not make a habit of hurting peopíe with his ditties,
but when he did have a shot, there was no danger of his
Pússing or the weapon being blunt.