Guðbrandur Vigfússon

Guðbrandur Vigfússon, known in English as Gudbrand Vigfusson, (13 March 1827 – 31 January 1889[1]) was one of the foremost Scandinavian scholars of the 19th century.

In 1849, already a fair scholar, he came to Copenhagen University in the Regense College,[2] where as an Icelander he received four-years free boarding under the Garðsvist system.

He wrote a beautiful, distinctive and clear hand, in spite of (or because of) the thousands of lines of manuscript copying he had done in his early life.

[2] He spent the seven years 1866–1873 on the Oxford Icelandic-English Dictionary,[4] often denoted by the shorthand "Cleasby-Vigfusson",[5] the best guide to classic Icelandic, and a monumental example of single-handed work.

The Grimm Centenary (1886) gives good examples of the range of his historic work, while his Appendix on Icelandic currency to Sir G. W. Dasent's Burnt Njal is a methodical investigation into an intricate subject.