Scandinavian scholar, born in Iceland, of good family; well familiar with the folk-lore of his country from boyhood, and otherwise educated at home, he entered Copenhagen University in 1850, occupying himself with the study of his native literature, and of every document he could lay his hands on, and out of which he hoped to obtain any light; in 1855 he published a work on the chronology of the sagas, and this was followed by editions of the sagas themselves; after this he came to Oxford, where he produced an Icelandic-English Dictionary and other works in the same interest, and died and was buried there (1827-1889).