Jón Ólafsson of Grunnavík (''Jón Ólafsson frá Grunnavík'', also known as ''Jón Grunnvíkingur'' or ''Grunnavíkur-Jón'', 1705–1779) was an Icelandic scholar. Originally from Grunnavík,

Westfjords The Westfjords or West Fjords (, ) is a large peninsula in northwestern Iceland and an administrative region, the least populous in the country. It lies on the Denmark Strait, facing the east coast of Greenland. It is connected to the rest of I ...

, northwestern

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

, he was active in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

, where he served as assistant to Árni Magnússon. He is the author of an Icelandic dictionary and a 1732 ''Runologia'', a treatise on

runology Runology is the study of the runic alphabets, runic inscriptions, and their history. Runology forms a specialized branch of Germanic linguistics. History Runology was initiated by Johannes Bureus (1568–1652), who was interested in the ling ...

. As in the fire of Copenhagen of 1728, the original manuscript of the ''

Heiðarvíga saga ''Heiðarvíga saga'' () or ''The Story of the Heath-Slayings'' is one of the Icelanders' sagas. It is badly preserved; 12 leaves of the only surviving manuscript were destroyed along with their only copy in the fire of Copenhagen in 1728. The co ...

'' was lost along with a recent copy made by Jón Grunnvíkingur, he wrote down a summary of the saga from memory, which is the only form in which the saga's contents survive today. The character of ''Jón Grindvicensis'' in

Halldór Laxness Halldór Kiljan Laxness (; born Halldór Guðjónsson; 23 April 1902 – 8 February 1998) was an Icelandic writer and winner of the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature. He wrote novels, poetry, newspaper articles, essays, plays, travelogues and sh ...

's historical novel '' Iceland's Bell'' is based on Jón Grunnvíkingur.

References

* Jón Helgason, ''Jón Ólafsson frá Grunnavík'', Copenhagen (1926) * Magnússon, Fridrik and Gudrún Kvaran (eds.). ''Hræringur úr ritum Grunnavíkur-Jóns. Ordmennt og Gódvinir Grunnavíkur-Jóns''. Reykjavík (1994). * Ingólfsdóttir, G. and S. Sigmundsson (eds.). ''Vitjun sína vakta ber. Gódvinir Grunnavíkur-Jóns og Háskólaútgafan''. Reykjavík (1999).

External links

Words from Jón Ólafssons’s dictionary in manuscript

Jón Ólafsson's ''Runologia''
1705 births 1779 deaths Icelandic scholars Religious studies scholars Sagas of Icelanders 18th-century Icelandic people {{reli-studies-bio-stub