Nikulás Ottenson

Nikulás learned to write from his father around the age of eight, and is the scribe of manuscript 28 in the Nikulás Ottensen Collection, a copy of Magnús í Magnússkógum's Rímur af Gretti Ásmundssyni which he made in 1915-16.[1]^{: 157, 172} As a young man, he worked inter alia in the fishing industry on the ship of his mother's brother Markús Snæbjarnarson.^[1]: 158

In 1887, Nikulás emigrated to Canada, where he worked in military service and in a shop. He lived for a time in

In Winnipeg, Nikulás continued his father's scholarship, very much in a traditional nineteenth-century Icelandic mode, collecting manuscripts and publishing two books of rímur.^[1]: 158 He revisited Iceland in 1909-10.^[1]: 159

Nikulás married Anna Guðmundsdóttir of Ferjukot, and they had three children: Thordis Louise Ottenson Gudmunds (born Winnipeg 16 September 1896, known in Icelandic as Lovísa), Louis, and Eddy.^[2][3][4]

Book collection

Nikulás probably began collecting books as a youth, certainly bringing a copy of the Bible from his father's collection to Canada; he probably built up most of his collection in the first decade of the twentieth century, however (not least while visiting Iceland in 1909-10).^{[1]: 158–59} In the summer of 1942, Nikulás wrote to Stefán Einarsson at Johns Hopkins University asking if Stefán could sell his collection and, with the encouragement of Kemp Malone and Isaiah Bowman, the collection was purchased from Nikulás in the winter of 1942-43 by the Johns Hopkins University Library.^[1]: 158

The book collection prominently includes Iceland's oldest printed Bibles (the

One Kristján Benediktsson composed the following verses in praise of Nikulás:^[1]: 158

Winnipeg Icelander

Nikulás Ottensen was a well-known figure in Winnipeg's Icelandic community. Poet Guttormur J. Guttormsson's satirical "Winnipeg Icelander" (1920) contains a reference to Nikulás Ottensen (called Nick Ottins or Nickie in the poem). The language parodies that spoken by urban immigrants in Winnipeg:

Eg fór on' í Main street með fimm dala cheque

Og forty-eight riffil mér kaupti

Og ride út á country með farmara fékk,

Svo fresh út í brushin eg hlaupti.

En þá sá eg moose, úti í marshi það lá,

O my — eina sticku eg brjótti!

Þá fór það á gallop, not good anyhow,

Var gone, þegar loksins eg skjótti.

Að repeata aftur eg reyndi' ekki at all,

En ran like a dog heim til Watkins.

En þar var þá Nickie með hot alcohol.

Já, hart er að beata Nick Ottins.

Hann startaði singing, sá söngur var queer

Og soundaði funny, I tell you.

Eg 'tendaði meira hans brandy og beer.—

You bet, Nick er liberal fellow^[6]

The poem ends with Nick Ottins inviting Dani McMillan to dine on wild game that he claims to have personally shot in flight, although it had in fact been purchased by the poem's hapless urbanite of a narrator after failing to hunt a moose.

Publications

• Össur Össursson, Rímur af Sörla hinum sterka, ed. by Nikulás Ottensson (Gimli 1910)
• Nikulás Ottenson, Minni Nýja Íslands, formannatal frá landnámstíð til vorra daga (Winnipeg 1934)

References