Vigfusson

Vigfusson, GUDERAND, Scandinavian scholar, was born in the district of Broadforth, Iceland, 13th March 1827, and studied at Copenhagen, where he lived from 1849 till 1864. In 1856 he was appointed one of the stipendiaries of the Arna Magnæan Commission. His master in the chosen work of his life was John Sigurdsson, to whom he dedicated his edition of Eyrbyggja Saga (Leip. 1864). Earlier and later works were his Tímatal (1855), an essay in Icelandic on the chronology of the sagas; Biskupa Sögur (1858-78); the Forn-Sögur (with Th. Möbius, 1860); the Flatejarbók (with Unger, Christ. 1860-68); the Icelandic Dictionary (1873), undertaken by Cleasby, and carried on from 1864 by Vigfusson; the Sturlunga Saga (2 vols. Oxford, 1878); and the magnificent Corpus poeticum boreale (with F. York Powell, 2 vols. Oxford, 1883). In 1864 he had settled in London, whence he moved to Oxford, where he was appointed in 1884 lector in Icelandic, and died January 31, 1889. He had received the doctorate from Upsala in 1877, the order of the Dannebrog in 1885.