Finn Hødnebø was a Norwegian philologist
and a lexicographer. He was most associated with his translations from Old Norse

Old Norse

Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....

 and Medieval Norwegian texts.

Finn Hødnebø was born in Søndeled

Søndeled

Søndeled is a former municipality in Aust-Agder county, Norway. It is currently part of the municipality of Risør in the Sørlandet region. The municipality had an area of upon its dissolution. The highway Riksvei 418 passes through Søndeled. Stamsø is a village in Søndeled...

, in Aust-Agder

Aust-Agder

is a county in Norway, bordering Telemark, Rogaland, and Vest-Agder. In 2002, there were 102,945 inhabitants, which is 2.2% of the total population in Norway. Its area is . The administrative center of the county is in Arendal....

 county, Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

. He graduated with the cand.philol. degree in 1948. He was Professor of Scandinavian Languages at the University of Oslo

University of Oslo

The University of Oslo , formerly The Royal Frederick University , is the oldest and largest university in Norway, situated in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. The university was founded in 1811 and was modelled after the recently established University of Berlin...

 (1972) and chair of the department of old Norwegian and the Norwegian, Norwegian Institute of lexicographical (1985). His works with Old Norse

Old Norse

Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....

 and Medieval Norwegian texts included the work Corpus Codicum Norvegicorum Medii Aevi. He was the Norwegian editor of Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder (1955-1978).

He received the King's Medal of Merit in Gold (1993).

Selected works

• The Viking Discovery of America, with Jónas Kristjánsson, editor, Elizabeth S. Seeberg, translator (1991)
• Heimskringla: The Sagas of the Viking Kings of Norway, with Knut A. Lie, editor, Lee M. Hollander, translator (1987)
• Ordforrådet i de eldste norske håndskrifter til ca. 1250, (1955)
• Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder fra vikingetid til reformationstid (volumes 1-22, published 1956-77)
• Norges kongesagaer, with Hallvard Magerøy (1979)
• Norrøn ordbok, with Leiv Heggstad and Erik Simensen (1990)