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The name of the poet, Svartr (Svartur) á Hofstöðum (Svart), is given in st. 42/4 of Skaufhala bálkr ‘Bálkr about Tassel-tail’ (Svart Skauf) in ms. Rask 87 8°ˣ (Rask87ˣ; the other, older ms., AM 603 4° (603), is incomplete; see Introduction below). His identity is uncertain, however, because there are three men from the same family with this name who are associated with the farmstead Hofstaðir, namely, Svartr Þorleifsson, who lived during the first half of the fourteenth century (mentioned in Icelandic documents in 1300 and 1343; see Jón Þorkelsson 1888, 222), his grandson, Svartr Þorleifsson (d. 1392; see Storm 1888, 367, 420 and Jón Þorkelsson 1888, 222), and Svartr Þórðarson, mentioned in Icelandic diplomas in 1462 and 1477, who may have been the grandson of the Svartr Þórleifsson who died in 1392 (see Jón Þorkelsson 1899 and idem 1922-7, 152-3). To complicate matters further, Björn Jónsson á Skarðsá (1574-1656) cites a variant four lines from st. 42 of Skauf in his Grænlandsannáll, which gives Einarr fóstri ‘Fosterer’ as the poet, to whom Björn also attributes Skíðaríma ‘Ríma about Skíði’ (Finnur Magnússon, Rafn et al. 1838-45, I, 112-13): Fróðir menn segja at sá Einar fóstri hafi kveðit Skíðarímu til skemtunar einn tíma … Hann kvað ok Skaufhalabálk ok barngælur, svo sem hann nefnir í endíng bálksins ‘Learned men say that this Einarr fóstri once composed Skíðaríma for entertainment … He also composed Skaufhalabálkr and the nursery rhymes, as he mentions at the end of the bálkr’. According to Björn á Skarðsá, Einarr fóstri was the poet of Björn jórsalafari ‘Jerusalem-farer’ Einarsson of Vatnsfjörður (d. 1415) and his wife ‘Ólöf’, and he takes that information from Björn Einarsson’s reisubók ‘travelogue’ (which is no longer extant). Jón lærði ‘the Learned’ Guðmundsson (1574-1658), who had seen this reisubók in his youth, also states in his Um ættir og slekti that Einarr fóstri was Björn Einarsson’s skald, but he only credits him with the composition of Skíðaríma and does not mention Skauf (Hannes Þorsteinsson 1902, 712): Einar fóstri var skáld hans, sem kvað Skíðarímu. Hans reisubók var með hönd höfð í ungdæmi mínu ‘Einarr fóstri was his poet, he who composed Skíðaríma. I had his travelogue in my hand in my youth’ (see also Jón Þorkelsson 1888, 218). From this now-lost travelogue (or via the works of Björn of Skarðsá and Jón Guñmundsson), the information about Einarr fóstri, Skíðaríma and Skauf found its way into various printed works and mss from the eighteenth-nineteenth centuries (see the references in Jón Þorkelsson 1888, 212 and idem 1922-7, 163-7). The identity of this ‘Einarr fóstri’ proved to be elusive, however, and around 1750 Hálfdan Einarsson, he, who studied in Copenhagen 1750-5, maintained, based on information from a genealogy available to him, that the poet who had composed Skíðaríma was one Sigurðr fóstri Þórðarson, not Einarr (see the discussion in Jón Þorkelsson 1922-7, 168-9). Hálfdan was the son of Einar Hálfdanarson, who copied Skauf in Rask87ˣ, and it could well be that he knew Svartr as the poet who composed Skauf and that this knowledge led him to doubt the attribution of Skíðaríma to ‘Einarr fóstri’. Subsequent scholars and scribes adopted Hálfdan’s suggestion (see the references in Jón Þorkelsson 1888, 213-17, 224-8 and idem 1922-7, 163-9), and, by inference, Skauf was also attributed to Sigurðr fóstri Þórðarson. It was not until the end of the nineteenth century, when Jón Þorkelsson discovered the copy of the complete poem in Rask87ˣ, that Svartr á Hofstöðum was acknowledged as the poet who composed Skauf (see Jón Þorkelsson 1888, 218-223, idem 1899 and idem 1922-7, 152-3, 169-80).

As stated above, there are three persons named Svartr who are associated with the farm Hofstaðir. Jón Þorkelsson (1888, 223) first identified the poet who composed Skauf as Svartr Þorleifsson the younger (d. 1392), and because the poem cannot be as early as the first half of the fourteenth century (see Introduction below), Svartr Þorleifsson the older can be excluded from the list of possible poets. In later works, however, Jón Þorkelsson (1899; 1922-7, 152-3, 169-80) has argued at length that the skald who composed both Skíðaríma and Skauf was Svartr Þórñarson, and that he composed the latter between 1462 and 1477. This Svartr is mentioned by Jón lærði Guðmundsson in his Um ættir og slekti, and he was Jón’s great-great-great-grandfather (Hannes Þorsteinsson 1902, 712): Á dögum ríka Björns Þorleifsson á Skarði og hans hústrú Ólufar, sem fyr var nefnd, bjó Svartr í Bæ í Króksfirñi. Hann var skáld hústrú Ólufar ríku og hann var skáld í minni ætt ‘In the days of Björn ríki ‘the Mighty’ Þorleifsson á Skarði and his wife Ólöf, who was mentioned earlier, Svartr lived at Bær in Króksfjörður. He was the skald of the lady Ólöf ríka ‘the Mighty’ and he was a skald in my family’. In a letter dated 27 June 1477, written à skarde à skardzstrond ‘at Skarð in Skarðsströnd’, Svartr Þórðarson confirms that he sold land from Hofstaðir in Þorskafjörður in Reykhólar parish to Jón Ásmundsson, and Jón Þorkelsson (1899; 1922-7, 152-3, 169-80) argues that this Svartr was the skald of Björn Þorleifsson á Skarði (d. 1479) and his wife Ólöf Loptsdóttir (d. 1479) and the forefather of Jón Guðmundsson. Jón Þorkelsson (ibid.) further maintains that the information about ‘Einarr fóstri’, the poet who, according to Björn Einarsson’s reisubók (cited by Jón Guðmundsson and Björn á Skarðsá), was allegedly the poet of Björn Einarsson and his wife ‘Ólöf’ and who composed both Skíðaríma and Skauf, is incorrect. According to him, Björn Einarsson (whose wife’s name was Solveig Þorsteinsdóttir, not Ólöf Loptsdóttir) had at some point been confused with his grandson Björn Þorleifsson á Skarði and therefore the travelogue cited by Björn á Skarðsá and Jón Guðmundsson in reality described the latter and not the former Björn’s journeys. Jón Þorkelsson also finds support for his conlusion in a ms. of Skíðaríma, which contains the following information (Lbs 1576 8°, from shortly before or shortly after 1800 in the hand of Ólafur Jónsson of Árney; see Jón Þorkelsson 1922-7, 165 and Sigurður Nordal ibid. 409, n. 1): Skíðaríma, kveðin af Sigurði fóstra [sumir segja Svarti skáldi Ólafar hústrú ‘Skíðaríma, composed by Sigurñr fóstri [some say by Svartr, the skald of the lady Ólöf’. Jón’s (1922-7, 169-80) argumentation is far too lengthy to be discussed in any detail here. There can be no doubt that there was a poet, Svartr Þórðarson, who flourished around 1470, was the ancestor of Jón Guðmundsson, the skald of Björn Þorleifsson and his wife Ólöf and owned land at Hofstaðir. Jón Guðmundsson was, however, well informed about this Svartr and his poetic endeavours (Hannes Þorsteinsson 1902, 713): Hann kvað lofmansöng um hústrúna og sem hann kvað fyrir henni sagði hún: ‘Ekki nú meira Svartr minn’ ‘He composed a flattering love-poem about the lady and as he recited it to her, she said: “No more of that now, my Svartr”’. Nowhere does Jón associate Svartr (about whose ancestors he says nothing) with Skauf, and he certainly did not know that he might have composed Skíðaríma, which he attributes to ‘Einarr fóstri’. Furthermore, the oldest ms. of Skauf, 603, contains archaic linguistic forms that are very difficult to reconcile with a 1462-77 date of composition (see Introduction below and Notes to the individual stanzas). We can, therefore, not exclude the possibility that Skauf was composed by Svartr Þorleifsson who died in 1392 (for his genealogy and family, see Jón Þorkelsson 1888, 220-2), who, incidentally, appears to have had ties to the family of Björn jórsalafari Einarsson (see Storm 1888, 407, s. a. 1361 and Einar Arnórsson 1949, especially pp. 13-27).

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