Throughout his life Maurer was a close friend to the Icelandic scholar Guðbrandur Vigfússon, the Norwegian folklorist Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, playwright Henrik Ibsen und writer Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson.
The first Icelandic-English Dictionary by Richard Cleasby and Guðbrandur Vigfússon, translates kesja as "a kind of halberd" and states that "kesja, atgeir and höggspjót appear to be the same thing".
From its earliest days the Society brought together the prominent scholars in the field: William Morris, Eiríkr Magnússon, Guðbrandur Vigfússon and Frederick York Powell were among the active members in its early days, and its publications, lectures, and symposia have continued in the same vein, featuring Gabriel Turville-Petre, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Ursula Dronke, for example.