He became a priest in 1334 with the benefice of Höskuldsstaðir á Skagaströnd and in 1343 the Archbishop of Nidaros granted him Breiðabólstaður í Vesturhópi, one of the best farms in the region, in what is now Vestur-Húnavatnssýsla, in Northern Iceland.
Einarr was one of the leading clerics in the diocese of Hólar, taking various official roles.
He almost certainly composed Lárentius saga, a biography of Einarr's friend and teacher Lárentíus Kálfsson, sometime after 1346; and wrote or otherwise appeared in a number of official documents.
Einar was the son of Hafliði Steinsson, who had been a priest of the Norwegian king, a ráðsmaðr (steward) at Hólar from 1292 to 1308 and finally the priest at Breiðabólstaður í Vesturhópi until his death in 1319; his mother was Hafliði's concubine Rannveig Gestsdóttir.
[2] Einarr's son was Árni, a farmer at Auðbrekka í Hörgárdal, the father of Þorleifr Árnason.