Gripla - 2023, Page 258

256 GRIPLA
Ásgeir Jónsson’s hand, AM 495 4to, and he recorded on a slip of paper at
the front of the manuscript that it had taken until 1725 to reclaim Gull-Þóris
saga from Oddur. Oddur was one of the most powerful men in Iceland at
the height of his career in the 1710s, but he made many enemies and was
stripped of his property and administrative position in 1724 and spent until
1730 seeking to regain control of his property. Oddur’s forceful and over-
bearing personality and rapid rise to power in 1707–1714, in combination
with a culture of heavy drinking among elite men, have long been noted
as factors in creating a volatile and tense situation within the Icelandic ad-
ministration (Jón Jónsson 1898). Within this context, Oddur and Árni had
a complicated relationship: bitter animosity developed between them that
softened somewhat in the 1720s, to the point where they corresponded
and Oddur willingly lent him some manuscripts (see Már Jónsson 2012,
162–166, 186, 209).
If Árni Magnússon’s relationship with Oddur Sigurðsson was poor,
his relationship with Jarþrúður’s widower, Magnús Sigurðsson of
Bræðratunga, was worse. An initially cordial acquaintanceship deterio-
rated rapidly after Magnús accused Árni of seducing his much younger
second wife, Þórdís Jónsdóttir (1671–1741), who was the granddaughter
of Helga’s brother-in-law Vigfús Gíslason. Magnús’s accusations were
baseless: he was an abusive husband to Þórdís, who fled to her sister in
Skálholt after he beat her repeatedly while pregnant. Like many perpetra-
tors of intimate partner violence, Magnús could not accept that Þórdís had
left him to protect herself, and he spread rumours that Árni was responsi-
ble for destroying his marriage. Árni took the matter to court, demanding
compensation for defamation, and he continued tenaciously to pursue the
case against Magnús even after Magnús’s death. Magnús’s heirs (Þórdís
and her children) would have been forced to compensate Árni had a final
court ruling not come down in their favour. Magnús Sigurðsson inherited
Jarþrúður’s share of Helga Magnúsdóttir’s library, which passed after his
death to Þórdís and their children.
Manuscripts at Bræðratunga
The following manuscripts and fragments were either owned by Helga
Magnúsdóttir or her children in the period up to her death in 1677.