Unnur Benediktsdóttir Bjarklind (1881 - 1946) who wrote as Hulda (the fairy or hidden one) was an Icelandic poet and prose writer. A proponent of symbol

Symbol

A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...

ism, she was the most prominent figure in a group of writers who revived and revitalized the þulur genre of oral litany.

Having a librarian as a father Hulda received an extensive home education. She studied English, German and French as well as the Scandinavian languages, granting her access to the works of European writers. Among Icelandic poets she admired the rural poetry of Eggert Ólafsson

Eggert Ólafsson

Eggert Ólafsson was an Icelandic explorer, writer and conservator of the Icelandic language.He was the son of a farmer from Svefneyjar in Breiðafjörður. He studied natural sciences, Classics, Grammar, Law and Agriculture at the University of Copenhagen.Ólafsson wrote on a wide range of topics...

 and the lyrical quality of Benedikt Gröndal's works. She began contributing poems to periodicals at the age of twenty and was quickly discovered by Einar Benediktsson

Einar Benediktsson

Einar Benediktsson was an Icelandic poet and lawyer.Einar Benediktsson's poetry was a significant contribution in the nationlistic revival leading to Iceland's independence. To this end, he was active both in establishing Landvarnarflokkurinn in 1902 and as the editor of Iceland's first daily...

 and Þorsteinn Erlingsson

Þorsteinn Erlingsson

Þorsteinn Erlingsson , was an Icelandic poet. He graduated from Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík in 1883 and went to Copenhagen to study law. He never finished law school but during his time in Copenhagen his poems became known in Iceland. He returned to his home country in 1895 and died of pneumonia in...

, who hailed her as a star of neo-romanticism

Neo-romanticism

The term neo-romanticism is used to cover a variety of movements in music, painting and architecture. It has been used with reference to very late 19th century and early 20th century composers such as Gustav Mahler particularly by Carl Dahlhaus who uses it as synonymous with late Romanticism...

. Her first volume of poetry, Kvæði (Poems; 1909) consists of lyrical nature poetry, contrasting the neo-romantic dream of freedom with the virtues of hard work while some metaphors suggest the oppressed condition of women. Despite delicate health and the duties of a housewife, Hulda was a prolific writer, publishing seven volumes of poetry, the last appearing posthumously in 1951. One of her best known works is a patriotic poem written to celebrate the establishment of the Icelandic Republic in 1944.

Hulda wrote more than ten volumes of prose; fairy tales, short stories and sketches as well as the two-volume novel, Dalafólk (People of the Valleys). She wrote the novel as a reaction to Independent People

Independent People

Independent People is an epic novel by Nobel laureate Halldór Laxness, originally published in two volumes in 1934 and 1935; literally the title means "Self-standing [i.e. self-reliant] folk"...

by Halldór Laxness

Halldór Laxness

Halldór Kiljan Laxness was a twentieth-century Icelandic writer. Throughout his career Laxness wrote poetry, newspaper articles, plays, travelogues, short stories, and novels...

. In contrast to Laxness' bleak view of rural life in Iceland, Hulda presents a somewhat idealized picture of the old manorlike farmsteads.