Hermann Pálsson was born at Sauðanes á Ásum, a farm near Blönduós and the Húnafjördur in the north of Iceland in 1921.
From there he moved to take another honours degree, in Irish Studies, at the National University of Ireland in Dublin in 1950.
[1] His first books reflected his Celtic interests: a volume of ancient Irish tales, Irskar fornsögur (1953), and another of Gaelic poetry from the Hebrides, Söngvar frá Sudureyjum (1955), both translated into Icelandic.
Decades later he would recount "the sufferings of a loquacious and not utterly teetotal young Icelander 'immersed' in a Calvinistic – and dry – village in Gwynedd.
"[1] In 1950 he was appointed Lecturer in Icelandic in the Department of English Language at the University of Edinburgh.