Gunnar Olof Hyltén-Cavallius

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Gunnar Olof Hyltén-Cavallius (1818-1889) was a Swedish scholar of cultural history, a librarian, theatre director and a diplomat.

Gunnar was the son of a clergyman from Vislanda. While he as a student at the Uppsala University, he was impressed with the late currents of Gothicismus. He was an employee at the Swedish Royal Library in the period 1839-1856, the director of the Royal Theatres, 1856-1860, and the Chargé d'affaires in Brazil, 1860-1864.

Gunnar was early interested in the collection of fairy tales and legends, and together with George Stephens, he published the first collection of Svenska folksagor och äfventyr in 1849-1849. His main work was Värend och virdarne (1-2, 1863-1868), which was inspired both by Jacob Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie (1835) and evolutionist theories of Sven Nilsson. Värend och virdarne can be seen as the foundation of Swedish ethnology.

During his last years, he lived in the parish of Skatelöv in Småland, and his collections were the foundation of the Museum of Småland in Växjö.