Icelandic poet and antiquarian, an outstanding figure in the history of Iceland's fight to preserve and revivify its language, culture, and economy.

Ólafsson was of an old farming family, and his major interests lay in natural history. He took a bachelor's degree at the University of Copenhagen. His great two-volume work Reise igiennem Island (1772; Travels in Iceland) records a scientific and cultural survey he carried out in 1752–57. Travels in Iceland gives a comprehensive description of the country and its people.

Ólafsson's poetry, of historical rather than of literary interest, voices his burning zeal for a cultural and political renaissance of Iceland. In "Búnadarbálkur" (“Poem on Farming”), for example, he portrays an ideal Icelandic farmer. His writing had a strong emotional appeal to his countrymen, heightened when he and his bride were drowned on their honeymoon journey home. He became an idealized father figure for later generations of young Icelandic patriots.