Hermann Pálsson
Icelandic scholar and translator
Hermann Pálsson (26 May 1921 – 11 August 2002) was an Icelandic language scholar and translator, "one of the most distinguished scholars of Icelandic studies of his generation". Often working in collaboration with others such as Magnus Magnusson or Paul Edwards, he translated around 40 works of medieval Icelandic literature.
Life
Hermann Pálsson was born at Sauðanes á Ásum, a farm near Blönduós and the Húnafjördur in the north of Iceland in 1921. Though he was the sixth of 12 children, and the family was not rich, he managed to gain a degree in Icelandic Studies at the University of Iceland in Reykjavík in 1947. From there he moved to take another honours degree, in Irish Studies, at the National University of Ireland in Dublin in 1950.
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. He also learned Welsh in the 1950s. 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".
In 1950 he was appointed Lecturer in Icelandic in the Department of English Language at the University of Edinburgh. In 1953 he married Stella Þorvarðardóttir.
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