Gripla - 2023, Blaðsíða 250

248 GRIPLA
The library at Bræðratunga to 1653
Most of Helga’s close male relatives held secular administrative posts,
including her brothers Gísli (1621–1696) and Björn (c. 1624–1697), both
of whom held the position of sýslumaður or district administrator—Gísli
in South Iceland, Björn in North Iceland. Helga’s sisters Jórunn (1622–
c. 1704) and Solveig (1627–1710) each married a sýslumaður. Although laws
on consanguinity were strict, all five of Magnús and Guðrún’s children
married either a second cousin or a second cousin once removed, and Björn
and Solveig married siblings.
Helga’s biography emphasises her spiritual development rather than
her secular accomplishments, but it gives an outline of major events in
her life: she was engaged in her fifteenth year to her cousin sýslumaður
Hákon Gíslason (1614–1652), married in 1639, widowed at twenty-nine.
She and her husband lived first at Munkaþverá in her parents’ household
and later at Hólar in the household of Hákon’s sister, Kristín Gísladóttir
(1610–1694), who was married to Bishop Þorlákur Skúlason of Hólar
(1597–1656). The couple remained at Hólar until 1643, when they left to
establish their own household at Bræðratunga, which had been the home of
Hákon’s parents, Gísli Hákonarson (1583–1631) and Margrét Jónsdóttir (c.
1573–1658). Their seven children were born at Bræðratunga in 1644–1652,
four of whom survived infancy: Elín (1644–1717), Vigfús (1647–1670),
Sigríður (1648–1733) and Jarþrúður (c. 1651–1686). Helga was pregnant
with their seventh child, a son, when news reached her at Bræðratunga that
her husband Hákon had collapsed suddenly on 27 September 1652 and died.
Sadly, their youngest child also died shortly after birth a few weeks later.
An inventory of moveable property in Hákon’s estate from 1653 is pre-
served in AM 268 fol. Surprisingly, it lists only four books at Bræðratunga,
all printed: a new Bible (printed at Hólar in 1637–1644 and obviously a
gift from Hákon’s brother-in-law, Bishop Þorlákur Skúlason); a New
Testament; a book of house postils; and an old hymnal (AM 268 fol., 117v).
Several factors may contribute to the near-complete absence of books at
Bræðratunga in the 1653 inventory:
• Hákon does not seem to have been particularly bookish: he owned
a large stable of horses but did not invest in a large personal library
of printed books;