Reconstructing the past in Iceland

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Reconstructing the past in

medieval Iceland

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Locating and dating sagas is a difﬁcult but still important task. This
paper examines the relationship between the Sagas of Icelanders, which
are concerned with tenth- and eleventh-century events, and the contem-
porary sagas of the mid-thirteenth century. Drawing upon models from
anthropology, it looks at how contemporary ideas permeated these histor-
icizing texts and how genealogy and geography act as structures around
which the past is remembered. The many political relationships which
occur in

Laxdæla saga

are analysed in relation to those from contempo-

rary sagas from the same area of western Iceland. Since it appears that
there is relatively little in common between the political situations
depicted in

Laxdæla saga

and those portrayed in the contemporary sagas,

it is likely that

Laxdæla saga

and the contemporary sagas were actually

written down in different periods. It is possible, therefore, that the Sagas
of Icelanders give us a view of the past which originates earlier than is
usually suggested.

The dating and contextualizing of medieval texts is an activity which
has had a long and important history. For generations of scholars,
whether literary critics or historians, knowing when and where a text
was produced was of fundamental importance for understanding what
that text could tell us, either about literary culture and development, or
about social change. For saga scholarship, particularly for scholars of Sagas
of Icelanders

(

íslendingasögur

), the locating of texts’ origins was perhaps

of even more signiﬁcance. While the development of Icelandic society
was once thought to be traceable through the analysis of these texts,

This article is based on part of my Ph.D. thesis, ‘Landscape, Tradition and Power in a Region
of Medieval Iceland. Dalir

.870–

.1262’, University of Birmingham (2001). I am very grateful

to Chris Wickham, Matthew Innes, Paul Fouracre, Orri Vésteinsson and an anonymous
reviewer for

Early Medieval Europe

, for comments and improvements on the thesis and/or

versions of this paper. I am also grateful to Harry Buglass who drew the maps.

Bogi Th. Melste

∂

Íslendinga saga

, 3 vols (Copenhagen, 1903–30).

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Chris Callow

saga scholars increasingly saw them only as literary ﬁctions.

The

scepticism about sagas’ historical value seems only to have intensiﬁed
the debate as to how and when sagas came to be composed. The
mid-twentieth-century editors of the

Íslenzk Fornrit

series of standard

editions of saga texts provided a detailed account of these debates. In
many cases the discussion about particular sagas’ origins has moved on
very little.

The approaches used by literary historians of Iceland to date texts

have remained essentially the same; they are also remarkably insular in
that they have been little inﬂuenced by work on England or continental
Europe. For some, however, the issues have changed, especially since
the 1980s, in the face of two related developments. First, the dating of
sagas has been more fully recognized for the difﬁcult and inconclusive
task it is. For many scholars the debate has worn itself out. Second,
some historians have recognized that it is possible to write a history of
medieval Iceland without recourse to detailed arguments about how
society might have changed from colonization, to the ceding of author-
ity to the Norwegian crown in the 1260s. Such changes, they would
claim, you cannot detect anyway.

As early as the 1950s van den Toorn

chose to write about ethics in Sagas of Icelanders; Jesse Byock and
William Miller have produced masterful accounts of the social processes
which Sagas of Icelanders and contemporary sagas (

samtí

∂

arsögur

)

record.

These works represent the application of ideas from scholars

working on other parts of the world and, originally, by historians in a
non-Icelandic milieu. They recognize the difﬁculty of making detailed
conclusions about social and political developments when the origins
and, more speciﬁcally, the dating of our sources are so difﬁcult to pin
down.

Given the problems inherent in dating and placing the origin of

surviving versions of Sagas of Icelanders, does this mean that we really
should stop trying to contextualize them or understand how they were
created? Some scholars argue we should not. Following the older tradi-
tion, which emphasizes the ability to locate the origins of texts in time
and space, there have been reﬁnements and new ideas. Miller and

For critiques in English see generally, T.M. Andersson,

The Problem of Icelandic Saga Origins:

A Historical Survey

(New Haven, 1964); J. Byock, ‘Saga-Form, Oral Prehistory and the

Icelandic Social Context’,

New Literary History

16 (1984), pp. 153–73.

W.I. Miller,

Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law and Society in Saga Iceland

(Chicago,

1990), pp. 49–51.

M.C. van den Toorn,

Ethics and Morals in Icelandic Saga Literature

(Assen, 1955).

J.L. Byock,

Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas and Power

(Berkeley, 1988) and

Viking Age Iceland

(New York and London, 2001); W.I. Miller, ‘Justifying Skarphe

∂

inn: Of Pretext and Politics

in the Icelandic Bloodfeud’,

Scandinavian Studies

55 (1983), pp. 316–44 and

Bloodtaking and

Peacemaking

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Reconstructing the past in medieval Iceland

299

Andersson have re-examined the relationships between the different
versions of

Ljósvetninga saga

and other sources, and suggested that that

saga dates from ‘around 1220’;

Magerøy saw the text as originating in

.1260.

Bjarni Gu

∂

nason, looking at the origins of

Hei

∂

arvíga saga

suggested a late thirteenth-century date for its composition, arguing
it showed the inﬂuence of theological issues pertinent to that date.

Previously an earlier origin had often been seen as the reason for its
‘awkward’ style.

It is the contention of this article that trying to date and locate texts

is still an important, if not very easy, task. For historians, contextualiz-
ing Sagas of Icelanders is something which is necessary if we are to go
beyond the generalized views of the functioning of early Icelandic soci-
ety set out by the likes of Miller and Byock. This is not to deny the
difﬁculties in identifying sagas’ origins and purposes but rather to try
to move the debate on, to see what light Sagas of Icelanders can shed
on attitudes to the Icelandic past and how this relates to the time in
which individual texts were written. In other words what follows is not
an argument for seeing the sagas as ‘historical’ texts in the positivist
tradition of much earlier saga scholarship, but to see them as texts
meaningful for the people who constructed them. It will be argued that
the meaning which these texts had was not only an abstract message
about morals or conduct, but one about local political relationships.
The local political detail in the sagas had a function for contemporary
audiences and contained the ideas of more people than simply their
compilers. An understanding of social memory, as it is now often
called,

in this case shaped by genealogy and geography, may well hold

the key to understanding the interrelations, or lack of them, between
the images of the past in Sagas of Icelanders, which describe tenth- and
eleventh-century events, and those in the contemporary sagas, which
cover the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It is this, a re-examination
of the relationship between Sagas of Icelanders and the time in which
their authors lived, which might improve our understanding of local
politics and social change in medieval Iceland.

T.M. Andersson and W.I. Miller,

Law and Literature in Medieval Iceland: Ljósvetninga saga

and Valla-Ljóts saga

(Stanford, 1989), p. 84.

H. Magerøy, ‘Ljósvetninga saga’, in P. Pulsiano and K. Wolf (eds),

Medieval Scandinavia: An

Encyclopedia

(New York, 1993), pp. 393–4, at p. 394.

Bjarni Gu

∂

nason,

Túlkun Hei

∂

arvígasögu

, Studia Islandica 50 (Reykjavík, 1993).

P. Schach, ‘Hei

∂

arvíga saga’, in P. Pulsiano and K. Wolf (eds),

Medieval Scandinavia: An

Encyclopedia

(New York, 1993), pp. 275–6, at p. 275.

J. Fentress and C. Wickham, Social Memory (Oxford, 1992).

In terms of general approach I think this is not too dissimilar to the statement on methodo-
logy by Walter Pöhl in ‘History in Fragments: Montecassion’s Politics of Memory’, EME 10
(2001), pp. 343–74, at pp. 343–54.

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The idea that contemporary ideas permeate historicizing texts is

hardly a new one, but it is one which has not been explored in sufﬁcient
detail in relation to Sagas of Icelanders. In particular it is the ways in
which sagas might express ideas about the local politics of their time
that still needs to be assessed. It will be argued below that the work of
anthropologists and analysts of traditional literature in some modern
societies, suggests that genealogy and geography act as important struc-
tures through which the past is remembered and revised in terms of
the present. In other words, geo-political relationships in the present can
be replicated in accounts of a community’s past. A related issue is the
signiﬁcance of genealogy for saga origins, in that it is a key to under-
standing the period in which a particular text was given its preserved
written form. A brief appraisal will also be made of past attempts to
date and locate sagas, including an assessment of the relative merits of
the various techniques that have been used. Last, the example of
Laxdæla saga will be used to apply the ideas being proposed and to
highlight their limitations as well.

Genealogy

It is undeniable that genealogy was important to medieval societies and
to none more so than medieval Iceland. Genealogy forms a signiﬁcant
part of most Sagas of Icelanders: major characters are usually ‘placed’
genealogically with a brief sketch of their ancestors and some contain
genealogical epilogues which link characters taking part in action
described in the saga to more recent generations. Likewise minor,
negatively portrayed characters are not given a genealogy at all. Fur-
thermore the existence of a vast text concerned almost entirely with
genealogy, The Book of Settlements (Landnámabók), suggests that people
were prepared to go to great lengths to record it. Some genealogy was
clearly invented, such as the patrilineal line (langfe∂gatal) constructed
by Ari Thorgilsson

to trace his ancestry to Yngvi Tyrkjakonungr.

Other simplistic lines of patrilineal and matrilineal descent in varied
locations might also be complete ﬁction, such as those doubtless created
to ﬁll out Landnámabók.

In contrast, it is remarkable how varied and

For the sake of comprehensibility for readers unfamiliar with Icelandic characters, the
Icelandic character ‘p’ has been replaced by ‘Th’ in all Icelandic names in this article except
for those in the titles of primary or secondary works.

Íslendingabók. Landnámabók, ed. Jakob Benediktsson, Íslenzk Fornrit, I (Reykjavík, 1968),
Íslendingabók at p. 27; A. Faulkes, ‘Descent from the Gods’, Mediaeval Scandinavia 11 (1978–
9, publ. 1982), pp. 92–125.

Adolf Fri∂riksson and Orri Vésteinsson, ‘Creating a Past: A Historiography of the Settlement
of Iceland’, in J.H. Barrett (ed.), Contact, Continuity, and Collapse: The Norse Colonization of
the North Atlantic, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 5 (Turnhout, 2003), pp. 139–61.

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‘organic’ most genealogy is, both in Landnámabók and Sagas of Iceland-
ers more generally. Varied kinds and shapes of genealogy are accorded
to saga characters, recording varying numbers of ancestors or contem-
porary kinsmen, sometimes for reasons which are not immediately
obvious. It is hard to imagine that this information did not have more
meaning in these texts than simply as historicizing ‘ﬁller’, or as an overt
attempt at aggrandizing the individuals concerned. Instead it makes
sense to think of this information as being of the kind that was known
by a fairly large number of people. This is especially likely to have been
true in a society which needed to place more stress on kinship than many
other medieval societies: social hierarchies were relatively ﬂuid and so
there was, in effect, no way of framing the past except through family
history. Family connections, often very tenuous, were clearly of signiﬁcance
for people in medieval Iceland in their everyday lives, as both Sagas of
Icelanders and contemporary sagas bear out. In legal disputes protagon-
sists drew on supporters wherever they could, but the ﬁrst place to seek
support was from one’s kin.

Thus genealogy was more than a kind of

framework for literary construction: it mattered in real life.

Anthropological literature gives further credence to the idea that

kinship – and therefore genealogy – matter in reconstructing the past
for some societies. What these studies tell us is ﬁrst and foremost that
genealogies structure people’s memories of the past and that they relate
the present to the past. As a result, genealogies get transmitted over
time, whether consciously or subconsciously, to explain existing polit-
ical situations as people observe them. This is particularly true of the
more distant parts of genealogies. In societies in which knowledge
about the past is transferred almost exclusively by the spoken word, as
in medieval Iceland, traditions change as people try to reconcile their
history with their present. The classic case study is Laura Bohannan’s
analysis of Tiv genealogies in Nigeria.

The Tiv groups studied by

Bohannan reconstructed their past primarily by discussing the relation-
ships of people in a genealogy. In these genealogies the positive and
negative relationships of the ancestors of contemporary groups were set
out. Bohannan concluded, however, that these genealogical histories
were ﬂexible: ‘The way in which Tiv learn genealogies and the lack of
written record allow changes to occur through time without a general
realization of the occurrence of that change; social change can exist with

Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking, esp. pp. 139–78.

M. Clunies Ross, ‘The Development of Old Norse Textual Worlds: Genealogical Structure
as a Principle of Literary Organisation in Early Iceland’, Journal of English and Germanic
Philology 92 (1993), pp. 372–85.

L. Bohannan, ‘A Genealogical Charter’, Africa 22 (1952), pp. 301–15. See also E. Peters, ‘The
Proliferation of Segments in the Lineage of the Bedouin in Cyrenaica’, Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute 90 (1960), pp. 29–53.

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a doctrine of social permanence.’

Bohannan discovered that the same

genealogical specialist in a Tiv tribe told the history of that tribe in
different genealogical terms at two different recordings several years
apart. In between her two recordings Bohannan noted that the political
and geographical relationships of the sub-groups whose ancestors made
up the Tiv genealogy had changed. These changes were reﬂected in the
genealogy, when on her second visit, she asked again about the history
of the tribal subdivisions. Newly formed alliances were reﬂected in the
closer genealogical ties of these groups’ ancestors; recently broken polit-
ical ties in the present meant that the Tiv reconﬁgured the genealogy
to create a more distant relationship between two groups’ ancestors; the
merging of two former subdivisions meant that the ancestor of one
group disappeared from the genealogy; and the uprooting and resettling
of a group nearer or further away could mean that their ancestors
moved from one branch of a genealogy to another. Accompanying the
master genealogy of the Tiv were stories which explained how the rela-
tionships of those ancestors were formed. Bohannan coined the term
‘genealogical charter’ to describe the phenomenon whereby the genea-
logical memory served present political purposes. The genealogies
changed so much precisely because of their central role in Tiv society.
Change over time in the genealogies, and in the associations which the
story tellers made between the people and places in them, could be seen
as a way to date the genealogical charter, the picture of the past.

The society of the early twentieth-century Tiv certainly cannot be

seen as entirely parallel with that of medieval Iceland. But, signiﬁcantly,
they shared a reliance on spoken communication rather than writing,
and family relationships formed the basis of socio-political organization
in the absence of some form of a non-kin based state system. Knowing
that genealogies inform narratives and may well change over time is
an alternative to the fruitless arguments which once went on in the
Iceland-related secondary literature about whether or not saga X was
correct in identifying character Y as the father of person Z. Rectitude
is not what is of importance here: the genealogies inform a narrative
which made sense to whoever was writing it down. What we can do,
however, is examine these differences to see if it is possible to explain
how they came about. We can piece together the political afﬁliations
suggested by the genealogies and stories in íslendingasögur and, by com-
paring them with the patterns portrayed in the contemporary sagas, we
can at least suggest whether or not they represent thirteenth-century
political patterns. Where the genealogy-derived patterns do not match
the thirteenth-century ones, then we could reasonably conclude, as we

Bohannan, ‘A Genealogical Charter’, p. 314.

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shall see, that the genealogical sources reﬂect different, potentially earlier,
political groupings.

To sum up, the process by which Sagas of Icelanders were con-

structed is imagined as something like this: early generations of Ice-
landers told stories about the past, probably a mixture of stories about
local events and ‘national’ events. These included all of the kinds of story
we ﬁnd in sagas – about the initial settlement of Iceland, feuds, killings,
marriages, hauntings, the arrival of Christianity, visits to royal courts in
Norway, etc. The order in which these stories took place, where they
took place, whom they involved and the outcomes of the stories were
open to change as part of an unwritten tradition. The ‘rules’ by which
the stories changed, however, were dictated by the political and social
circumstances under which they were being told. Present circumstances
would have affected the views of the community’s past so strongly, that
the stories of a succeeding generation might retain little but some of the
names and places. Events might move from one generation to another,
remembered as happening before or after another story, or be associated
with one farm rather than a neighbouring one, according to current
circumstances. The view of saga construction put forward by Carol
Clover, of an ‘immanent saga’ – whereby related oral tales were com-
monly known but not properly ordered into a single story until they
were written down – is helpful here.

It would have been this writing

process which helped, to order and place, literally, the stories according
to the current perceived ‘genealogical charter’, to use Bohannan’s term.
Lastly, it needs to be stressed that the ﬁrm association of saga characters
with particular farms at particular times and those character’s local
political dealings were of great signiﬁcance. It has been suggested above,
and will be argued for in more depth below, that it would only make
sense to portray people in a place in a certain way if this was fairly close
to the way that that place was perceived at the time of writing. Rather
than allowing the saga author free reign with his material it is imagined
that social memory dictated much of what was written down.

The only way to test this set of ideas is to look at an example where,

for a particular region, we have coverage of politics by both a Saga of
Icelanders and contemporary saga. Laxdæla saga, a saga which covers
parts of western Iceland, will be examined below. The northern valley
systems, Eyjafjör∂ur and Skagafjör∂ur, or parts of the southern plain
could also feasibly be studied in the same way, but the detail for the
west of Iceland is better. What follows, therefore, is an analysis of the
many political relationships which occur in Laxdæla saga and then of
those in the contemporary sagas for the same region.

C. Clover, ‘The Long Prose Form’, Arkiv för Nordisk Filologi 101 (1986), pp. 10–39.

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Applying the theory: Laxdæla saga

Laxdæla saga, one of the best-known Sagas of Icelanders, recounts the
history of Dalir, an area of mid-western Iceland, and in particular of
Laxárdalur, from colonization (landnám) to the time of Snorri go∂i
(chieftain) Thorgrímsson in the eleventh century. The following potted
summary, along with Figures 1 and 2, will be useful for making sense
of the analysis of the text’s politics.

The saga begins with the story of the ﬂight from Norway of Ketill

ﬂatnefr’s (Ketill ﬂatnose) family due to the dominance of Haraldr inn
hárfagri (Harald ﬁnehair). Across Chapters 5 to 7 is the famous account
of the landnám of Unnr in djúpú∂ga Ketilsdóttir (Unn the Deep-
Minded), who settles at the farm of Hvammr, and her ship’s crew to
whom she gives part of her landnám in inner Dalir (Chs 6–9). Unnr
dies and her grandson Óláfr feilan takes over at Hvammr. Óláfr’s kin-
ship with Dala-Kollr, who is set up as the most illustrious of Unnr’s
crew and who settles Laxárdalur, is recounted. Thereafter for most of
the saga the action takes place in Laxárdalur or it involves its inhabit-
ants.

Next we hear about relations between Höskuldr Dala-Kollsson

See Fig. 2.

Fig. 1 The main setting of Laxdæla saga. The area in the inset box is shown in
more detail ﬁg. 2

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and his half-brother Hrútr Herjólfsson, who at ﬁrst contest their inher-
itance but eventually come to terms (Ch. 19). Höskuldr’s sons are at the
centre of the next action; one son, Óláfr pái (Olaf the Peacock), moves
to Hjar∂arholt and his line comes to the fore but not until he has
argued with his half-brother, Thorleikr. To patch up the Höskuldsson’s
disagreement, Óláfr fosters Thorleikr’s son Bolli. Bolli and his foster
brother Kjartan Óláfsson emerge as great friends and promising young

Fig. 2 The location of farms in and around Laxárdalur

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men. Their relationship is eventually soured, however, when Bolli takes
the opportunity to marry the woman Kjartan loves, Gu∂rún Ósvífrsdóttir
(Ch. 43). Kjartan marries another woman, Hrefna, but tension arises
between the two couples. The theft of precious objects from Kjartan and
Hrefna’s home (Hjar∂arholt) is attributed, with good reason, to Bolli
and Gu∂rún’s household at Laugar. The dispute escalates from Kjartan
humiliating Bolli’s household by trapping them indoors without access
to a privy, into a dispute over the farm of Sælingsdalstunga, to Kjartan’s
murder, to Bolli’s murder, and in turn to the killing of one of Bolli’s
murderers. Eventually, after Bolli’s death, Gu∂rún moves out of the dis-
trict of Hvammssveit altogether because of the intensity of the dispute
(Ch. 56). She actually swaps farms with Snorri go∂i who emerges as her
friend and ally in exacting revenge on Kjartan’s brothers. Gu∂rún and
Snorri also manage to manipulate other inviduals into carrying out the
killing of Helgi Har∂beinsson (whom they had chosen as their victim
after Helgi had taken part in Bolli’s killing rather than one of the
Óláfssons). The saga’s last chapters see the peaceful end to the feud and
concentrate on Gu∂rún (now living at Helgafell, Snorri’s former farm)
and her descendants, including Bolli Bollason. Gu∂rún remarries but
her last husband – Bolli had been her third husband – dies at sea.

Twentieth-century views

Before moving on to discuss the way the idea of a genealogical charter lies
behind Laxdæla saga it is worth exploring previous approaches to its dating,
context and meaning. Laxdæla saga contains such a detailed account of
local geographical and topographical details of its western Icelandic
setting that it is often considered to have been told and written down by
people who were from around Dalir.

If Clover’s theory of an ‘immanent’

saga is correct, however, then we need not expect one person to carry around
all the knowledge of the landscape of the areas covered by the saga.
Given the evidence for a highly mobile Icelandic elite in the contem-
porary sagas (which record twelfth- and thirteenth-century conditions)
the writer might actually have been born and raised somewhere entirely
different and acquired their knowledge of the landscape later in life.

Discussions of this saga, as with many other Sagas of Icelanders, have

usually focused on determining the author of the saga rather than
assuming that it is predominantly the product of an oral tradition.
Different critics’ concerns have led to several thirteenth-century authors

‘Formáli’, Laxdæla saga, ed. Einar Ól. Sveinsson (Reykjavík, 1934), p. xxiii. All subsequent
citations of this standard edition which use Roman numerals as page references are to
Sveinsson’s introduction.

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being proposed: Snorri Sturluson (d. 1241), Óláfr hvítaskáld Thór∂arson
(d. 1259) and Sturla Thór∂arson (d. 1284) are the most prominent among
them. The issue of dating the written version of Laxdæla saga has been
linked with concerns to attribute authorship to one or other of these
candidates: in that context it has been most often dated to somewhere
between about 1230 and 1280. Superﬁcially scientiﬁc attempts have been
used to place Laxdæla saga in space and time and thence to identify its
author. Comparative statistical analyses of the language of Laxdæla saga
and other saga texts have been used to suggest that the author was Óláfr
hvítaskáld Thór∂arson (see Fig. 3)

but this identiﬁcation is hardly

conclusive. The case for Snorri Sturluson’s authorship is far less con-
vincing than for other sagas with which he has been associated and it
has been made far less often.

See Fig. 3.

For the authorship debates see P. Hallberg, Óláfr pór∂arson hvítaskáld, Knytlinga saga och
Laxdæla saga. Ett forsök till språklig författarbestämning, Studia Islandica 22 (Reykjavík, 1963)
and, after ﬁfteen years of debate between Hallberg and Rolf Heller across more than one
journal, a later response of Hallberg’s, ‘Ja, Knytlinga saga und Laxdæla sind Schöpfungen
eines Mannes’, Mediaeval Scandinavia 11 (1978–9, publ. 1982), pp. 179–92. Heller’s contri-
butions, contra Hallberg, included ‘Laxdæla saga und Knytlinga saga. Studien über die
Beziehungen zwischen den beiden Sagas’, Arkiv för Nordisk Filologi 80 (1965), pp. 95–122;
‘Knytlinga saga und Laxdæla saga: Schöpfung eines Mannes?’, Mediaeval Scandinavia 11 (1978–
9, publ. 1982), pp. 163–78. M. Mundt, Sturla pór∂arson und die Laxdæla saga (Bergen, 1969)
and H. Magerøy, ‘Har Sturla pór∂arson skrivi Laxdæla saga?’, Maal og Minne (1971), pp. 4–
33 discussed another potential author. For full references to the debates up to the mid-1980s
see C. Clover, ‘Icelandic Family Sagas (Íslendingasögur)’, in C. J. Clover and John Lindow
(eds), Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide, Islandica 45 (Ithaca, NY, 1985),
pp. 239–315, esp. pp. 245–6, 289–90. Despite Heller’s criticisms of Hallberg’s data, some intri-
guing similarities exist between Laxdæla saga and Knytlinga saga with which Óláfr Thór∂arson
has also been associated but their real signiﬁcance is unclear. M. Madelung, The Laxdæla saga:
Its Structural Patterns (Chapel Hill, NC, 1972) took Laxdæla saga’s depiction of Snorri go∂i’s
wiles to imply that Snorri Sturluson was playing some kind of game with his readers and in
fact complimenting himself. The comments on Snorri go∂i’s political sleight of hand are,
however, ambiguous. Using the evidence which Einarr Ól. Sveinsson used in his introduction
to the Íslenzk Fornrit edition of the saga, Madelung also narrowed down the dates within
which the saga might have been written. By a tendentious line of argument based around the
supposed symbolic repetition in the saga of the numbers twelve, three and two, she deduced
that Laxdæla saga was written in 1232.

Fig. 3 The Sturlungar

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Laxdæla saga has also attracted the attention of critics who have seen

the interests of a female author emerge because of its inclusion of a love
triangle as a major plot element, its recording of a female primary
settler, Unnr in djúpú∂ga, and its special interest in characters’ feelings
and clothes.

For similar reasons the saga has been seen as being more

heavily inﬂuenced by foreign romance literature than have other Sagas
of Icelanders. Laxdæla saga is also thought to have textual relation-
ships or debts to Landnámabók, other Sagas of Icelanders (including
Eyrbyggja saga, Hei∂arvíga saga, Egils saga, Færeyinga saga) as well as
Snorri Sturluson’s Ólafs saga helga – with all of which it does share occa-
sional similarities of content or style.

Arguments have also been made for a fairly active literary shaping of the

text. Themes and literary borrowings have been identiﬁed but the proposed
schema can be criticized either for being so elaborate as to test what we
might expect of any medieval author or, at the other extreme, simply
common elements of oral storytelling.

Andrew Hamer’s recent attempt

to connect Laxdæla saga with Augustinian theology is much more con-
vincing but the connection may still be indirect.

Overall, attempts to

prove Laxdæla saga’s literariness have not been very successful. The bulk
of Laxdæla saga can still be regarded as being fairly closely derived from
oral stories which could easily have been put together without too
much moulding from a writer if they were not already regarded as a
single saga. This was most likely done before c.1220 and perhaps earlier.

Abbot Ketill Hermundarson

Laxdæla saga consists of seventy-eight chapters and 248 pages in the
standard Icelandic edition. Seven pre-Reformation vellum manuscripts

Helga Kress, ‘Meget samstavet må det tykkes deg: Om kvinneopprör og genretvang i Sagaen
om Laksdölene’, Historiskt Tidskrift 3 (1980), pp. 266–80; R. Cook, ‘Women and Men in
Laxdæla saga’, Skáldskaparmál 2 (1992), pp. 34–59; A. Finlay, ‘Betrothal and Women’s Auto-
nomy in Laxdæla saga and the Poets’ sagas’, Skáldskaparmál 4 (1997), pp. 107–28.

B.M. Ólsen, ‘Landnáma og Laxdæla saga’, Aarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie 1908,
pp. 151–232; Laxdæla saga, pp. xxxix–xl; Jón Jóhannesson, Ger∂ir Landnámabókar (Reykjavík,
1941), pp. 213–16; Björn Sigfússon, Um Íslendingabök (Reykjavík, 1944), pp. 66–71.

Rolf Heller was the most vigorous espouser of Laxdæla saga’s dependence on other written
sources, see especially, ‘Laxdæla saga und Knytlinga saga’ and Die Laxdæla saga: Die literar-
ische Schöpfung eines Isländers des 13. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1976) and more recently ‘Laxdæla
saga und Færeyinga saga’, Alvíssmál 11 (1998), pp. 85–92. For other links see P. Conroy,
‘Laxdæla saga and Eiríks saga rau∂a: Narrative Structure’, Arkiv för Nordisk Filologi 95 (1980),
pp. 116–25; P. Conroy and T. Langen, ‘Laxdæla saga: Theme and Structure’, Arkiv för Nordisk
Filologi 103 (1988), pp. 118–41. For literary structure see, for example, H. Beck, ‘Laxdæla saga
– A Structural Approach’, Saga-Book of the Viking Society 19 (1977), pp. 383–402.

A. Hamer, ‘Laxdœla Saga: Shipwreck and Salvation’, unpublished paper; idem, ‘Laxdæla Saga:
Kjartan Ólafsson’s Baptism and Death’, Paper given at the International Medieval Conference,
University of Leeds, 14 July 1999. I am very grateful to Andrew Hamer for allowing me to
see his work in advance of publication.

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preserve at least part of the saga but only Mö∂ruvallabók, dated to the
early fourteenth century, preserves the whole text and so forms the
basis of the standard text.

Despite the attempts at dating the writing

down of Laxdæla saga, it cannot be done with any great degree of
certainty. A fairly ﬁnal version of the text, which must have been widely
copied for us to have so many surviving manuscripts (or fragments)
which are almost identical, can, however, be given a terminus post quem
of about 1200 to 1220. This information is provided by the saga’s
genealogies. The manuscripts that preserve the sections of the saga
with the latest genealogies in them have genealogies reaching into the
early thirteenth century. While most of the genealogies focus on
the tenth century, the chieftain Thorvaldr Snorrason (d. 1228) and the
sons of Hermundr Ko∂ránsson (d. 1197), including Abbot Ketill
Hermundarson of Helgafell, are the last people to be mentioned in the
extensive genealogies at the end of the saga (see Fig. 4).

The version

we have must have been written up after the aforementioned chieftain
(höf∂ingi) Thorvaldr Snorrason became worthy of note in Brei∂afjör∂ur,
i.e. not before about 1209.

This is all the internal dating evidence

there is.

A good case can be made for the genealogical information con-

tained in Laxdæla saga pinpointing Abbot Ketill Hermundarson’s
descendants as responsible for writing down the surviving version of

Laxdæla saga, pp. lxxvi, lxxx.

Laxdæla saga, pp. 83, 226.

Sturlunga Saga, eds Jón Jóhannesson, Magnús Finnbogason and Kristján Eldjárn, 2 vols
(Reykjavík, 1946), I, pp. 250–1.

Fig. 4 Bolli Thorleiksson’s descendants recorded in Chapter 78 of Laxdæla saga

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the saga rather than the Sturlungar or anyone else. This was the
conclusion reached nearly a century ago by Hannes porsteinsson

but the idea has probably not met general acceptance because the
family concerned ﬁgures very little in the contemporary sagas. The
genealogy in the saga’s ﬁnal chapter has a very particular focus: it is
remarkable for the detailed account of descendants of Bolli Bollason
and his wife Thórdís, the daughter of Snorri go∂i. It extends forward
in time in the kind of detail otherwise not covered in the saga’s genea-
logies, except for two very simple lines traced down to two other local
families whose inclusion seems far less obvious.

The commissioners or

writers of the text would appear to have been responsible for what look
like additions to an earlier text, in particular what can reasonably be
assumed to be one person’s knowledge of their family and connections
with two major saga protagonists in Bolli Thorleiksson and Snorri
go∂i.

Despite the argument based on the genealogies, which might lead us

to expect a heavy inﬂuence on the text from Abbot Ketill’s family, this
is hard to detect beyond the genealogy. Based on the evidence of the
contemporary sagas, it is anyway difﬁcult to know what the family’s
view of the past might have been. They were prominent in the twelfth
century, and were still seemingly so as late as about 1230, but then
by the 1250s had lost their chieftaincy at which point a member of
the Sturlungar was controlling it. The fact that two women from
Ketill’s family were also the concubines of leading ﬁgures like Snorri
Sturluson and Gizurr Thorvaldsson suggests that they still had ties
to the most important people in Iceland, but the nature of those ties is

Hannes porsteinsson, ‘Nokkrar athuganir um íslenzkar bókmenntir á 12. og 13. öld’, Skírnir
86 (1912), pp. 126–48.

In these instances it is not clear that this represents the intervention of anyone connected
with Abbot Ketill’s family or from Helgafell, the monastery over which Abbot Ketill
presided. Both genealogies are ‘simple’ in that they are single lines of descent traced through
the male line only (Icelandic langfe∂gatal) and they each end with a relatively wealthy and
inﬂuential western Icelandic secular leader who ﬂourished in the late twelfth century and early
thirteenth century respectively: Ari inn sterki Thorgilsson, who had lived at Sta∂arsta∂ur
on Snæfellsnes (d. 1190s), and Thorvaldr Snorrason (d. 1228) from Vatnsfjör∂ur (Laxdæla
saga, pp. 83, 228; Lú∂vík Ingvarsson, Go∂or∂ og go∂or∂smenn, I–III (Egilssta∂ir, 1986–7), III,
pp. 26–33.

See Fig. 4. Within this genealogy there is a bishop, an abbot of Helgafell, the man who set
up the church farm at Húsafell (Orri Vésteinsson, The Christianization of Iceland: Priests,
Power and Social Change (Oxford, 2000), pp. 102, 107) and a priest. The saga identiﬁes
Úlfhei∂r, the wife of Hermundr Konrá∂sson, as the granddaughter of Bishop Ketill of Hólar
(1122–45) and Ketill Hermundarson as abbot of Helgafell. Ketill Hermundarson was the
abbot of Helgafell for four years, 1217–20 and probably died in 1220 (Islandske Annaler indtil
1578, ed. G. Storm (Christiania, 1888), pp. 185, 187). The addition of the genealogy here and
the occurrence of Bolla páttr, the short story about Bolli Bollason’s adventures, at the end of
Laxdæla saga in Mö∂ruvallabók would seem to be part of the same attempt to tailor the
original text and manuscript for this family.

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unclear.

The likely form of any inﬂuence of Ketill Hermundar-son’s

family on Laxdæla saga is, therefore, also unclear, even if we assume
that writers consciously changed sagas. The saga certainly does not
have an obvious pro- or anti-Sturlungar slant, or favour other leading
families. Even Bolli Thorleiksson’s family is not altogether positively
portrayed. And it must be remembered that Bolli and Snorri go∂i
had a signiﬁcance for the history of many more people than Ketill
Hermundarson’s family or the Sturlungar as is shown, for example, by
the interest in northern Icelandic events in Bolla páttr.

Bolli Thorleiks-

son, father of Bolli Bollason, must, logically, have had more descend-
ants still, and so his image in the saga has no doubt been shaped by
wider forces than simply the interests of Ketill or of a single patron.
The picture of politics in the saga, which will be explored in depth
below, suggests explanations which play down the creativity of authors
and play up the processes of social memory.

Laxdæla saga’s reconstruction of the past in Dalir

Laxdæla saga provides a number of images of the relationships between
individual farms and their occupants – usually the bóndi (householder)
– with which we can compare what we know of local ‘political’ rela-
tionships in the twelfth and thirteenth century. Based on the arguments
outlined above, we ought reasonably to be able to see some similarities
between the relationships of individual farms in the text and in the
period in which it was written. Whether this argument is accepted or

Sturlu saga tells us that Hermundr Konrá∂sson (see Fig. 4) lived at Kalmanstunga in Borgar-
fjör∂ur, and had probably controlled the chieftaincy of the Jöklamenn (Jöklamannago∂or∂;
Ingvarsson, Go∂or∂ og go∂or∂smenn, III, pp. 26–33). In the late 1150s he joined Einarr Thorgils-
son against Sturla Thór∂arson, eponymous founder of the so-called Sturlungar clan. But
Hermundr and his sons Ketill and Ko∂rán also probably supported Bö∂varr Thór∂arson
(Sturla’s father-in-law) (Sturlunga saga, I, pp. 74, 107, 111). Ketill Hermundarson, however,
seems to have taken up an ecclesiastical career before about 1210 as he was the servant
of Bishop Páll of Skálholt (Byskupa sögur, ed. J. Helgason, 2 vols (Copenhagen, 1938–78), I,
p. 140). His niece, Gu∂rún Hreinsdóttir, became the partner/mistress of Snorri Sturluson.
Gu∂rún’s daughter by Snorri was brieﬂy married to the powerful Gizurr Thorvaldsson
(Sturlunga saga, I, p. 242). These were connections with the most inﬂuential men in Iceland.
It is possible that Abbot Ketill had inherited a go∂or∂ (chieftaincy) but his general absence
from the contemporary sagas suggests that he was either not interested in secular politics or
else not able to make his mark (Sturlunga saga, I, p. 107; Go∂or∂ og go∂or∂smenn, III, p. 29).
His son, Kári, however, is named as a supporter of Klængr Bjarnarson, a member of the
powerful Haukdælir family, in events in Borgarfjör∂ur in 1231. Borgarfjör∂ur was the area in
which the chieftain holding the Jöklamannago∂or∂ traditionally resided, which implies that
Ketill’s family still had some inﬂuence there. By 1253, however, Thorgils skarvi Bö∂varsson,
one of the Sturlungar, seems to have held the Jöklamannago∂or∂ and been able to appoint
someone else to take control of it while he was away in Norway (Sturlunga saga, II, p. 149;
Jón Vi∂ar Sigur∂sson, Chieftains and Power in the Icelandic Commonwealth, trans. Jean
Lundskaer-Nielsen (Odense, 1999), p. 174).

Laxdæla saga, pp. lxii, 230–48.

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not, the comparison between the images of the tenth and eleventh centuries
and those of the twelfth and thirteenth provides much food for thought
in relation to the origins of the Sagas of Icelanders generally.

What follows in this section is a detailed account of the relationships

of individual farms mentioned in Laxdæla saga. Only by deconstructing
the saga in this detail can we actually see what it thinks of micro-
political relations of the kind which mattered in Icelanders’ everyday
lives. This provides the only meaningful level on which to compare
Sagas of Icelanders’ views of politics with the contemporary sagas.

First, it needs to be restated that the saga is undoubtedly pro-Laxárdalur

– a view which it is hard to imagine Abbot Ketill Hermundarson or
his kinsmen fostering – and in particular it is keen to stress the pre-
eminence of Hjar∂arholt. Hjar∂arholt has its own ‘origin myth’ (Ch. 24)
in the shape of a story about how Óláfr pái Höskuldsson bought the
farm formerly owned by Hrappr (Hrappssta∂ir) and purged the farm
to the north of Laxá of Hrappr’s ghost. Hrappssta∂ir was deserted when
the saga was written (Ch. 10). Óláfr built the new farm, Hjar∂arholt, in
a clearing in some woodland which had been popular with his live-
stock; he is credited with naming it as well (literally ‘herd’s wood’ or
‘herd’s clearing’). This story establishes the farm’s tenurial independ-
ence and its seniority to Hrappssta∂ir, which the saga must be assuming
was part of the Hjar∂arholt estate. While this story and subsequent
events contrive to show Hjar∂arholt as pre-eminent in its region, as well
as its own valley, it should be noted that it was not remembered as
being a farm established early in the region’s history. It is seen as settled
by the family who had lived at Höskuldssta∂ir, which not only connects
the two farms but also might suggest that Höskuldssta∂ir was seen as
superior in some respect. The question of the focus of the saga over
time and possible images of political change will be dealt with below.

Höskuldssta∂ir had a longer history than Hjar∂arholt, according to

the saga, but ultimately it did not have the same political clout. An
early dispute deﬁnes its relationship with Hrútssta∂ir, a farm adjoining
it to the south. Hrútr, the half-brother of Höskuldr, came from Nor-
way to claim his share of his Icelandic inheritance (Ch. 19). Although
the brothers disagreed over this it seems to have been settled amicably
and so that Hrútr kept Hrútssta∂ir. After this period, however, the saga
does not mention Höskuldssta∂ir again.

In Hrútr’s later years tension rises between him and Thorleikr

Höskuldsson, who rather than occupying Höskuldssta∂ir lives at Kamb-
snes. Thorleikr is portrayed as a troublemaker – he takes in a sorcerer
and his family – while Hrútr’s urge to best Thorleikr comes to nothing
because of Óláfr pái Höskuldsson’s support for his brother (Ch. 37).
Eventually Thorleikr proves to be such a bad lot that he is encouraged

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to leave Iceland by his brother. Kambsnes’ reputation is not an alto-
gether positive one at this point and it seems decreasingly illustrious as
the saga progresses. Kambsnes – either as a place name or farm name –
appears ﬁrst as the place where Unnr in djúpú∂ga dropped her comb
(hence Kambsnes, ‘comb’s ness’) and then as the temporary home of
Hrútr for three years (Ch. 19) before Thorleikr Höskuldsson moves
there (Ch. 25). The saga in fact gives a rather muddled account; Kamb-
snes is named by Unnr, occupied as a farm by Hrútr, but then estab-
lished as a new farm by Thorleikr. It is almost as if two different places
are being discussed

and that it is from the latter household, associated

with the disreputable Thorleikr, that his son Bolli Thorleiksson was
taken to be fostered by Óláfr pái at Hjar∂arholt when Thorleikr left
Iceland. The saga is perhaps reconciling the negative image of Thorleikr
with the positive one of Höskuldssta∂ir and choosing to place Thorleikr
geographically somewhere else (see below).

Höskuldssta∂ir, Hrútssta∂ir and Kambsnes disappear from the saga’s

action relatively early but many other farms are involved in events in
Laxárdalur. Like these three farms the rest can be seen as having polit-
ical and/or tenurial relationships to other farms.

Goddasta∂ir, the next farm up from Hjar∂arholt on Laxárdalur’s

northern side, was occupied in the time of Höskuldr and Hrútr by
Thór∂r goddi. The various things we are told about Thór∂r seem, at
face value, to be rather contradictory but they can all be read to show
him as politically weak and not altogether successful. He is said to have
been supported by Höskuldr against the aggression of Hrappr from
Hrappssta∂ir, Thór∂r’s neighbour at a time Hjar∂arholt was estab-
lished. Thór∂r was very rich (au∂ma∂r mikill) but childless and had had
to buy his farm, which presents him as ‘new money’ and not altogether
successful. He is also later accused by Höskuldr of being tight with his
money (Ch. 16). Thór∂r is credited with marrying into the line of Unnr
in djúpú∂ga, thus to a woman related to both Thór∂r gellir from Hvammr
and to Thórólfr rau∂nefr from the farm of Sau∂afell (Ch. 11). Yet the
powerful connections of his wife and his own lack of a support network
prove to be Thór∂r’s undoing. When he falls out with his wife she seeks
the help of Thór∂r gellir who in turn turns to Höskuldr for support.
Thór∂r has to accept Höskuldr’s son, Óláfr pái, as a foster son in return
for Höskuldr’s aid; this is a fostering relationship which shows the
imbalance of the political position of the parties involved. The saga
makes the further implications clear too: while Höskuldr’s wife regards
Goddasta∂ir as too lowly a place for her son to stay, Höskuldr is pleased
that when Thór∂r goddi dies Óláfr pái will inherit Goddasta∂ir (Ch. 16).

Cf. Laxdæla saga, p. 45, n.1.

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The saga seems to imply that Goddasta∂ir had ended up in the control
of Óláfr pái and thus Hjar∂arholt. Thór∂r and Goddasta∂ir lose their
independence in the face of aggression from stronger farmers.

Lambasta∂ir, on the other side of Goddasta∂ir, was occupied by

Thorbjörn skrjúpr (‘feeble’). Rather like Thór∂r, Thorbjörn is said to
have been wealthy (au∂igr var hann at fé) but stingy (veiﬁskati); his lack
of genealogy also marks him out as fairly insigniﬁcant. Lambasta∂ir has
a more lasting impact on events than Goddasta∂ir, though, because
Thorbjörn marries Melkorka, the mother of Óláfr pái and one-time
concubine of Höskuldr. Melkorka had her own farm, Melkorkusta∂ir,
which Höskuldr had given her (Ch. 13). Although this farm lay some-
where to the south of Laxá, its past, as Laxdæla saga portrays it, was
bound up with that of Lambasta∂ir. Thorbjörn and Melkorka have a
son, Lambi, who both supports Óláfr’s sons in avenging the death of
Kjartan Óláfsson and is forced into taking part in killing one of his com-
rades from the Óláfssons’ group of supporters. Lambi appears unable
to control his own political position. As for his abode in Laxárdalur, the
text is obscure as to whether Lambi inherited either Melkorkusta∂ir or
Lambasta∂ir, or both. Both farms, like Goddasta∂ir, are regarded as
inferior to Hjar∂arholt. This is suggested from the outset by Thorbjörn
skrjúpr’s willingness to pay off Óláfr pái with a large sum (thirty hundreds),
in order to win Melkorka’s hand in marriage (Ch. 20). Lambasta∂ir and
Melkorkusta∂ir thus appear weak, tied to Hjar∂arholt through rela-
tionships which show them as politically and socially inferior.

Beyond these farms the saga gives a very scant account of politics in

Laxárdalur. Lei∂ólfssta∂ir, next to Höskuldssta∂ir on the latter’s eastern
side, is seen as inﬂuenced by Thorleikr Höskuldsson from Kambsnes.
Lei∂ólfssta∂ir is mentioned just once, when Thorleikr moves a sorcerer
and his family there (Ch. 36). Much further up the southern side of the
valley, Dönusta∂ir is later occupied by Steinpórr, the son of Óláfr pái
(Ch. 52). While Steinpórr’s immediate loyalty was to Óláfr, his rela-
tionship with Höskuldssta∂ir, his grandfather’s farm, might conceivably
have mattered as well.

The pattern of relationships between farms in Laxárdalur which

Laxdæla saga conceives of shows up conﬁgurations that can be thought
of as either enduring and long-term, or the short-term product of nar-
rative demands. There is no doubt that in trying to make sense of un-
clear stories, the saga creates solutions for problems. For example, Thór∂r
goddi and Melkorka are characters which were undoubtedly generated
from their names for stories which revolve around Hjar∂arholt.
Sometimes the saga cannot quite reconcile stories which seem to con-
ﬂict, such as those about who lived at Kambsnes. At the same time it
might be argued that the primacy of Hjar∂arholt – suggested by its

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control of at least three other farms north of Laxá and at least two to
its south – could have been a feature of Laxárdalur’s micro-politics from
the valley’s earliest occupation by Norse settlers. A balance between these
enduring geo-political patterns and the specious needs of the narrative
ought, perhaps, to be struck.

The point of view of the text, and how it relates geography and

genealogy, can be further established through a look at the attitude of
Laxdæla saga to other places in western Iceland. Hvammssveit, the dis-
trict immediately north of Laxárdalur, is the most obvious place to start
in assessing the broader set of political relations. Hvammr, Laugar,
Sælingsdalstunga, and Ljárskógar are the farms which are connected
in some way with the saga’s action. Hvammr appears as the home of
Unnr in djúpú∂ga and her grandson and great-grandson, Óláfr feilan
and Thór∂r gellir. The pre-eminence of Hvammr as a settlement-
period farm makes it stand out, alongside Bjarnarhöfn on the other side
of Hvammsfjör∂ur, as one of the most important farms at this time.
Rather incongruously Hvammr disappears from the story, however,
after Thór∂r gellir’s generation. Instead, it would seem that Laugar and
Sælingsdalstunga were remembered as important.

Gu∂rún’s family are associated with Laugar but there is no story to

link them right back to the colonization period. Similarly, the fate of
the farm is of no interest to the saga after Gu∂rún and her father move
to Helgafell (Ch. 56). Thus the power of Laugar appears rather ﬂeeting.
At the same time the conﬂicts of the Laugamenn with Óláfr pái and his
sons imply that the saga could believe Laugar capable of being some
kind of centre of power.

Sælingsdalstunga’s ﬁrst occupant (who is not connected with anyone

else) is ousted by Bolli Thorleiksson who is then ‘gazumped’ by his
foster brother, Kjartan Óláfsson. When Kjartan is killed the property
reverts to Óláfr pái, who offers it to Bolli. Bolli lives there with Gu∂rún
until he too is killed. Next the property is swapped by Gu∂rún for
Helgafell, whence she moves as Snorri go∂i moves in the opposite
direction. On Snorri’s deathbed he gives it (back) to Bolli Bollason,
Gu∂rún’s son and Snorri’s son-in-law (Ch. 78). Thus at the end the farm
is controlled by someone who could claim descent from the settlers
Unnr in djúpú∂ga and Björn inn austræni, as well as the Laugamenn.
It might be signiﬁcant that Sælingsdalstunga was seen as the source of
so much conﬂict.

Midway between Laxárdalur and Hvammssveit was Ljárskógar. The

farm was remembered as the home of Thorsteinn Thorkelsson kugga
(Ch. 75) and probably his father Thorkell kuggi (Ch. 50). These men
were descendants of Unnr and, in fact, Thorkell was the son of Thór∂r
gellir, the memory of whose power appears earlier on in the saga in

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connection with Thór∂r goddi’s wife (Ch. 16). The saga generally seems
to regard these as respectable, high-born characters but who took only
a limited and fairly neutral part in politics. Having said that, Thorsteinn
is seen as the friend of Thorkell Eyjólfsson, Gu∂rún Ósvífrsdóttir’s last
husband, when this Thorkell tries to buy Hjar∂arholt. Both men are
rebuffed, outwitted by Halldórr Óláfsson. In this incident, there is
some small sign, then, that Ljárskógar could be associated with farms
and people other than Hjar∂arholt and the Laxdælir, just as its location
might suggest. Indeed, the farm’s occupants also had as close a kinship
to Thorkell Eyjólfsson as they did to the men of Hjar∂arholt.

Turning to the south of Laxárdalur, it is clear that the saga has

relatively little interest in people and places in Mi∂dalir and on the
northern coast of Snæfellsnes. This makes the farms and the people it
chooses to name, and their reputations and genealogy, all the more
signiﬁcant. Without exception, in fact, the farms the saga mentions in
this area were wealthy or powerful in the later Middle Ages, yet most
of the characters in this area are not part of the master genealogy of
Unnr in djúpú∂ga and are either negatively portrayed or opposed to
Hjar∂arholt.

First, Sau∂afell is ﬂeetingly identiﬁed as the home of Thórólfr

rau∂nefr, whose niece divorced Thór∂r goddi. Thórólfr is not provided
with a genealogy, other than the connection with his niece, but he is
seen as doing the right thing by supporting his niece against her
husband (Ch. 15). Sau∂afell is not seen as particularly remarkable but,
perhaps, it is signiﬁcant that the saga chooses it, rather than other farms
in Mi∂dalir, as the home of Thór∂r goddi’s wife.

Hundadalur, a farm (or valley of the same name) in Mi∂dalir, was

home to Thorsteinn svarti. Thorsteinn was one of the men, along with
Lambi Thorbjarnarson, who takes part in the killing of Bolli Thorleiks-
son and is then forced to take part in killing Helgi Har∂beinsson, who
was not only an accomplice from that ﬁrst party but Thorsteinn’s
kinsman too (Chs 54, 61, 64). Thorsteinn, like so many characters in
the saga, is also manipulated into breaking a basic social rule of early
Icelandic society. Of the two farms named in Mi∂dalir, then, Hundadalur,
is more negatively portrayed.

Thorgils Hölluson from Hör∂udalstunga, a farm in the valley imme-

diately west of Mi∂dalir, is also duped into taking part in the killing of
Bolli’s murderer, but for a different reason. He is conned by Gu∂rún
Ósvífrsdóttir into thinking she will marry him if he acts on her behalf.
Thorgils is chosen for this honour, however, because he is seen as
something of a political force in his district (Skógarströnd) and also
because he already seemed keen to win favour with Gu∂rún (Ch. 57, by
inviting her son Thorleikr to live with him). Embroiling Thorgils in a

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killing, after which he might be liable to be outlawed, is Snorri go∂i’s
and Gu∂rún’s way of tempering his political ambitions. Even with this
hanging over him, Thorgils still goes so far as forcibly to take over the
chieftaincy of a man from Langadalur (Ch. 67, at the western end of
Skógarströnd, near Helgafell). Snorri now acts decisively to remove
Thorgils from the scene; he gives the son of the go∂i (chieftain) from
Langadalur an axe which the son uses to kill Thorgils Hölluson as the
latter, ironically, is counting out the silver to be paid in compensation
to Helgi Har∂beinsson’s family. The saga does not tie up the loose ends
of this set of conﬂicts which suggests that Thorgils was neither missed
nor had allies willing to seek redress.

The sons of Ármó∂r of Thykkvaskógr are best discussed in connec-

tion with Thorgils Hölluson. These men were Thorgils’ foster brothers
and went with him to kill Helgi Har∂beinsson. Their genealogy seems
to equate fairly well with their role in the story. While they have a fairly
illustrious descent – they were nephews of the well-known chieftain
Gestr Oddleifsson from Bár∂aströnd in the West Fjords – they are not
descended from Unnr. They do have a connection to Unnr’s line,
though only tangentially as Hrútr Herjólfsson married their sister
(Ch. 19). Thus Thykkvaskógr and its inhabitants emerge as being fairly
neutral and of middling status in the saga.

While Langadalur has already been mentioned as the home of a go∂i,

the go∂i concerned is identiﬁed as seen as relatively weak (ekki ríkr).
This view of the power of Langadalur helps to put the status of Thorgils
Hölluson and Snorri go∂i (and later Gu∂rún’s household) at Helgafell
into perspective. On the one hand Thorgils aspired to be a ‘not very
powerful’ go∂i, on the other, Snorri, living close to Langadalur, was a
go∂i who could control Thorgils. No doubt the power of Langadalur is
conceived of primarily in relation to that of Helgafell and Snorri.

The control of Helgafell, like that of Sælingsdalastunga, is intriguing.

The farm is not mentioned for most of the saga, not until it becomes
the subject of the swap between Snorri and Gu∂rún Ósvífrsdóttir. The
reason for the exchange of farms is that each party has made too many
enemies in their own district, something which is obviously true in the
saga for Gu∂rún but simply stated for Snorri (Ch. 56). The position of
Helgafell is seen mostly in terms of its relations with Sælingsdalstunga:
Snorri and Gu∂rún are friends; Snorri has Bolli Bollason living with
him and eventually Bolli marries Snorri’s daughter and takes over
Sælingsdalstunga. Some of Snorri’s actions, then, see him allied to
Gu∂rún and therefore against the Óláfssons and Hjar∂arholt. This
perhaps shows us what the saga thinks of Helgafell’s political position.
Set against this, however, is Snorri’s unwillingness to be drawn into
the dispute in the ﬁrst instance (Chs 49–50) and the fact that he does

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not start scheming with Gu∂rún against them until he has moved to
Sælingsdalstunga (Ch. 59). It is as the occupant of Sælingsdalstunga,
therefore, that Snorri seeks to put one over on the Óláfssons, Thorgils
Hölluson, Thorsteinn svarti and Helgi Har∂beinsson. Such a reading
implies that Gu∂rún is not as dominant as some commentators would
like to see her, but accords well with other representations of Snorri as
a cautious and effective politician.

It is no easy task to sum up all the images of places and people from

mid-western Iceland presented by Laxdæla saga, especially when some
of them are so sketchy. One reading of the political patterns, however,
might be as follows. No one farm remains dominant throughout the early
history of the region. Hjar∂arholt supplants Höskuldssta∂ir as a centre
of power within Laxárdalur; in Hvammssveit, Hvammr’s dominance is
replaced by (or at least not as well remembered as) that of Laugar and
Sælingsdalstunga. Of these farms, Laugar is opposed to Hjar∂arholt
and Sælingsdalstunga is contested between them, with the result that
it makes sense that a powerful third party should move there. Laxdæla saga
does not see the area to Laxárdalur’s immediate south as a focal part of
the area’s past. It sees Sau∂afell in fairly neutral terms, but Hör∂udalr
and Hundadalur as weaker and liable to inﬂuence not only by the farm
Hjar∂arholt but by Sælingsdalstunga and Helgafell as well. The people
of the district of Mi∂dalir are not part of the genealogy of Unnr in
djúpú∂ga which connects the other areas discussed. This implies that
they were not remembered as being part of the same wider political
community. At the end of the saga Helgafell seems to have lost some
of its secular political signiﬁcance, with Snorri’s moving away, but
gained a religious signiﬁcance as the home of Gu∂rún who is said, in
the saga’s last chapter, to become a nun after building a church.

The twelfth and thirteenth centuries

The political situation which the contemporary sagas give of the area
covered by Laxdæla saga is in some respects less full than Laxdæla’s
account. Nowhere is there as detailed an account of the relationships of
farms in any given valley as there is for Laxárdalur in Laxdæla saga. The
drier, often broader narrative of the sagas covering the later period
(c.1117–21 and c.1150–c.1264) does, however, include some detail and sug-
gests both political relationships and the preconceptions about place and
genealogy of their writers. Like the Sagas of Icelanders, contemporary
sagas are eclectic and selective in what they tell us.

Sturlu saga, which

The full list of relevant texts within the Sturlunga compilation of sagas is: Porgils saga ok
Haﬂi∂a, Sturlu saga, Íslendinga saga, Pór∂ar saga kakala and Porgils saga skar∂a.

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focuses on the rivalry of the chieftains Sturla Thór∂arson and Einarr
Thorgilsson in the later twelfth century, provides the densest coverage.
Signiﬁcant farms mentioned in Laxdæla saga, such as Hjar∂arholt,
Laugar, Hvammr and Sau∂afell, are also important in this later period,
but so too are other, larger farms like Ásgar∂r, Skar∂, Sta∂arhóll, Sta∂arfell
and Kvennabrekka which feature because they were the homes of
important people at one point or another during the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries.

In broad terms, there are some similarities with Laxdæla saga in the

way politics are represented in the later period – the number of chieftains
active in Dalir is somewhere between two and four – yet chieftains’
bases and their political allegiances are usually different. Laxdæla saga,
although imprecise in its terminology, seems to think of Snorri go∂i,
Óláfr pái, Bolli and Thórarinn of Langidalr (and later Thorgils Hölluson)
as chieftains. In Sturlu saga, by contrast, the number of active chieftains
in Dalir would seem to be just two, Sturla Thór∂arson (the founder of
the so-called Sturlungar lineage, see Fig. 3) and Einarr Thorgilsson, with
a third, Thorleifr beiskaldi Thorleiksson, living much further south at
Hítardalur, sometimes getting involved in politics in Dalir.

As far as mid- to late twelfth-century politics are depicted, Sturla

ór∂arson is remembered as imposing his inﬂuence over a number of

less powerful farmers in Hvammssveit and surrounding districts. Sturla
seems to have been set on gaining power in Hvammssveit when he buys
Hvammr and later gains a share in Sælingsdalstunga at the expense of
the allies of Einarr porgilsson from Saurbær.

Ásgar∂r, a farm which

appears nowhere in Laxdæla saga, proves to be the biggest rival to Sturla
in Hvammssveit until Sturla forces its hostile inhabitants to move out.

Sturla dominates other farms, including Laugar, whose bóndi, the
patronymic-less Sigur∂ur kerlingarnef, is attacked by Einarr porgilsson.
Hjar∂arholt appears just once in Sturlu saga when Magnús prestr went
to the wedding feast of the young Sturla pór∂arson in northern Iceland,
which implies that they were on good terms.

To investigate the political relations of particular farms and districts

for the texts dealing with the later period, it makes sense to start with
Höskuldssta∂ir, a key farm in Laxdæla saga’s narrative and fairly central within
the Dalir region. Höskuldssta∂ir actually emerges ﬁrst as an opponent
of Hvammr in a dispute which is attributable to the 1190s. The chieftain
Sturla Thór∂arson, the subject of Sturlu saga, is dead by now but his
sons show themselves to be extremely powerful. In the dispute recorded,
tensions rise as a kinsman of Sturla’s sons is murdered. The Sturlusons,

Sturlunga saga, I, pp. 68, 73.

Sturlunga saga, I, pp. 82, 83, 96.

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probably in retaliation, try to hang someone they identify as a thief.
This produces opposition, however, from the farmer at Höskuldssta∂ir,
and a ﬁght ensues which the Sturlusons effectively win.

It would

seem from this that Höskuldssta∂ir was remembered as quite actively
opposed to Hvammr in the late twelfth century. This tension may have
been the result of the ousting of Hjar∂arholt’s owners as a result of a
deal which Sturla had made. At some point before 1200, Sturla’s son
Sighvatr had also moved to Hjar∂arholt, and this may well have caused
resentment in Laxárdalur.

Sighvatr Sturluson is identiﬁed as being unpopular elsewhere in Dalir

and this helps to shape images of power in Mi∂dalir for the early thir-
teenth century. Sighvatr soon left Hjar∂arholt to buy Sau∂afell and, for
the ﬁrst time, Sau∂afell emerges as the home of someone considered
notable by any saga.

Sighvatr has disputes with the heads of the farms

of Fellsendi and Snóksdalr, although he manages to retain a strong
connection with Hjar∂arholt through his kinsman Dufguss Thorleifsson
who still lived there.

The disputes in Mi∂dalir, and the active opposi-

tion of even Sighvatr’s brother (living at Hvammr), precipitate his move
out of Dalir altogether.

The connection between Hjar∂arholt and Sau∂afell – a farm about

which Laxdæla saga has little to say – remains stable throughout the next
generation of Sturlungar. While Sighvatr Sturluson and Dufguss both
move out of Dalir, their sons continued to live at Sau∂afell and Hjar∂arholt
respectively and to operate together. In the end, in fact, the Dufgussons
almost seem to have a loyalty to Sau∂afell which goes beyond the bonds
of their kinship with the Sighvatssons. Dufguss and his brothers are
often named in raiding parties or accompanying ﬁrst Sturla, then his
kinsman Thór∂r kakali, and ﬁnally the Sighvatssons’ brother-in-law
Hrafn Oddsson, who lived at Sau∂afell by the 1240s;

the youngest of

Dufguss’ brothers was still living at Hjar∂arholt in 1255. The enduring
link between Hjar∂arholt and Sau∂afell is not depicted in Laxdæla saga.

Something can also be said about Hjar∂arholt’s relations with farms

in Hvammssveit because of a dispute recorded for the 1220s. The names
of the farms involved are completely different from any in Laxdæla saga,
at least in the case of the lesser ones. Dufguss Thorleifsson, and by
implication, Hjar∂arholt, is shown in a bad light when he makes an
ill-advised attempt to attack a man from the farm of Skorravík (on
Fellsströnd) who had been accused of fathering a servant’s child.

Sturlunga saga, I, p. 232.

Sturlunga saga, I, pp. 234–6; Helgi porláksson, ‘Sau∂afell. Um lei∂ir of völd í Dölum vi∂ lok
p

jó∂veldis’, Yﬁr Íslandsála (1991), pp. 95–109.

Sturlunga saga, I, p. 264.

E.g. Sturlunga saga, I, pp. 311–14, 419, 423, 447, 455; II, pp. 24, 185, 191, 195.

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Dufguss, like Sighvatr Sturluson, is driven out of Dalir by their kins-
man Thór∂r Sturluson.

Skorravík, and nearby Höfn, where Dufguss

actually attacked the accused man, were effectively within Thór∂r’s
territory because Thór∂r still lived at Hvammr.

Further political relationships can be identiﬁed for Sau∂afell. First,

three incidents suggest that the farm had a strong inﬂuence on Laxárd-
alur. In the 1230s Sturla Sighvatsson was able to impose two outlaws of
his acquaintance on the farms of Ljárskógar (the farm remembered as
the home of Thorkell kuggi in Laxdæla saga), and at Hornssta∂ir in
Laxárdalur. Further north, Laugar, one of the pivotal farms in Laxdæla
saga, emerges as the home of a supporter of Sturla Sighvatsson for over
twenty years from the 1220s.

Elsewhere we are given some impression

of where Sturla Sighvatsson at Sau∂afell might get support most readily.
In 1232, when threatened by a chieftain from outside Dalir, he could
draw on the support of ‘those men, such as he wanted, from Haukadalr’
and ‘Hör∂udalur and more widely about Dalir’.

From these districts

the homes of a further two supporters are identiﬁed, namely, Kvenna-
brekka and Hundadalur.

This all suggests that Sau∂afell could draw

on a reasonably large support network, well beyond Hjar∂arholt and
one or two farms in Mi∂dalir.

Moving westwards, Helgafell, so important in the latter half of

Laxdæla saga, has a less signiﬁcant role in the contemporary sagas. Non-
narrative sources attest to its having not only a church but also a mon-
astery before 1190.

Part of Helgafell’s absence from the action may be

explained by a lack of interest in the Helgafell district but it seems
unlikely that this accounts for it entirely. By the 1220s it would seem
that Thór∂r Sturluson, who controlled the farm of Öndver∂areyrr, a
few kilometres west of Helgafell, was in a position to intimidate Hel-
gafell but (later) also acted as the protector of smaller farmers around
Helgafell and along Skógarströnd. Sau∂afell’s chieftains do not seem to
have had much sway in this area.

In the 1250s there is also evidence

which suggests the relative weakness of Helgafell in the face of the
power of the chieftain Thorgils skar∂i Bö∂varsson.

Helgafell’s image

is signiﬁcantly different to that which comes across in Laxdæla saga.

Sturlunga saga, I, pp. 312–13.

Sturlunga saga, I, pp. 315, 316, 352, 353, 355, 413, 435, 438; II, p. 287.

Sturlunga saga, I, p. 348.

Sturlunga saga, I, pp. 350–52. Men from Höskuldssta∂ir and Laugar are named here as well.
This is also the only sequence of events in which Hundadalur, the home of Thorsteinn svarti
in Laxdæla saga, is mentioned.

Islandske Annaler, pp. 118, 180; Diplomatarium Islandicum, Íslenskt Fornbréfasafn 834–1600,
16 vols (Copenhagen and Reykjavík, 1857–1976), I, p. 282.

Sturlunga saga, II, pp. 237, 264–5.

Sturlunga saga, II, pp. 51–2.

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Conclusions

Whether or not it is wholly appropriate to apply strictly Bohannan’s
model of the ‘genealogical charter’ to medieval Icelandic conditions,
there is certainly every reason to believe that the communities who
knew the stories which are contained in Sagas of Icelanders would have
interpreted much of their past in terms of their present. Every society
which is not strongly reliant on written records does this, as has been
illustrated many times for other medieval societies.

Given the detail of

politics in Dalir provided by the contemporary sagas, especially in the
thirteenth century, it ought therefore to be possible to at least give some
indication as to whether or not Laxdæla saga is more likely to have been
written down at some point in that period or another. Of course the
contemporary sagas are neither straightforward as historical narratives
themselves,

nor likely to be comprehensive. It is immediately clear, for

example, that they are only intermittently as detailed as any Saga of
Icelanders. In fact even this detail is rare for anywhere except the west
of Iceland. There is sufﬁcient information in which we can be reason-
ably conﬁdent, however, that there ought to be geo-political patterns
in common between Laxdæla saga and subsequent narratives about
Laxárdalur and Dalir if, indeed, the former was written in the time of
the latter.

It appears that there is relatively little in common between the

political situations depicted in Laxdæla saga and any situation portrayed
in contemporary sagas. The differences can be outlined. Laxdæla saga is
a narrative which almost breaks down into three parts. First, there is a
colonisation story which emphasizes the pre-eminence of Hvammr and
its association with Höskuldssta∂ir. Second, Hjar∂arholt takes over as
the dominant farm in Laxárdalur and contends for local control with
Laugar. The relationships of Hjar∂arholt with other farms are set out:
many in Laxárdalur are subservient to it, indeed most farms are except
for Höskuldssta∂ir and – a bit further away – Ljárskógar. People from
Thykkvaskógar, to the south of Laxárdalur, are identiﬁed as opposing
Hjar∂arholt, as are farms in Mi∂dalir generally (Hör∂udalstunga,
Hundadalur). To the north, Hjar∂arholt disputes with Laugar over
Sælingsdalstunga. Hvammr, the most powerful farm in the landnám
narrative in Laxdæla saga and in the later twelfth century, is curiously
absent from events. Instead, in the third broad section of the saga,

E.g. P. Magdalino (ed.), The Perception of the Past in Twelfth-Century Europe (London, 1992).

A message pushed most forcefully by Úlfar Bragason. See, for example, ‘Frásagnarmynstur í
p

orgils sögu skör∂u’, Skírnir 155 (1981), pp. 161–70; ‘The Art of Dying’, Scandinavian Studies

63 (1991), pp. 453–63; ‘Um samsetningu pór∂ar sögu kakala’, in Gísli Sigur∂sson, Gu∂rún
Kvaran and Sigurgeir Steingrímsson (eds), Sagna ing helga∂ Jónasi Kristjánssyni sjötugum 10.
apríl 1994 (Reykjavík 1994), pp. 815–22.

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Sælingsdalstunga and Helgafell emerge as the most powerful farms
which work together, not only against Hjar∂arholt, but also against
the farms identiﬁed in Mi∂dalir. Gu∂rún Ósvífrsdóttir is identiﬁed as
Helgafell’s founder in what appears to be an addition to an earlier text.

The accounts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries show some

patterns which might be related to those which appear in Laxdæla saga.
Hjar∂arholt seems to have been the most powerful farm in Laxárdalur
throughout this period and Höskuldssta∂ir was probably the second
most powerful, to judge by its occasional appearance. The relationships
of Hjar∂arholt, when they are traceable, seem, however, to have shifted
over the long term. First, in the later twelfth century it was connected
with Hvammr (and by implication Sælingsdalstunga, another of Sturla
Thór∂arson’s properties), and then with Sau∂afell from about 1200.
Neither of these relationships quite tallies with Laxdæla saga which
ignores both of these farms in the main body of its account. We cannot
say much about relationships within Laxárdalur based on the contem-
porary sagas; the fact that Hjar∂arholt is the only farm regularly referred
to in these narratives does strongly suggest, though, that it was pre-
eminent. Most of the farms mentioned in the valley in Laxdæla saga do
not ﬁgure in the broader account of the contemporary sagas.

For Hvamssveit the account of politics differs markedly in Laxdæla saga

and the texts covering the later period. Hvammr is home to a leading
ﬁgure throughout the period c.1150–c.1260 and Sælingsdalstunga is also
important. Laugar is nowhere near as important in the later accounts
as it is in Laxdæla saga, although it is of sufﬁcient status to appear. As
with Hjar∂arholt, it seems to be allied to Hvammr in the twelfth cen-
tury and opposed to it in the thirteenth. Other Hvammssveit farms
appearing in the later period are not mentioned in Laxdæla saga; Skor-
ravík and Höfn (both on Fellsströnd) and Ásgar∂r (in Hvammssveit)
are all farms of reasonable size (judging by the documentary evidence
dating from later centuries). There is perhaps a resonance between the
dispute over Sælingsdalstunga recorded in Laxdæla saga and the contest
over it which is alluded to in Sturlu saga, yet the respective ‘contestants’
(Laugar and Hjar∂arholt; Hvammr and Sta∂arholl in Saurbær) are so
different as to make this seem like a very distant connection between
the two texts.

The same might be said of the image of Helgafell. The switch of abode

by the dominant power in the region from Helgafell to Hvammssveit
in Laxdæla saga seems to parallel that which might have occurred
when Helgafell became a religious institution in the 1180s just as
Sturla Thór∂arson and his sons were establishing their dominance in
Hvammssveit. Here again, though, the parallel might be only partial
because we have too little evidence to determine whether Helgafell or

Early Medieval Europe

  ()

324

Chris Callow

Sælingsdalstunga were really as powerful in the twelfth century as they
appear in Laxdæla saga; if Snorri go∂i had moved to Hvammr the
Laxdæla saga account would have made more sense in terms of the later
twelfth- and thirteenth-century ones.

Further differences between the world-views of Laxdæla saga and the

contemporary sagas could also be pointed out; for example, the kinds
of marriage alliance outside of Dalir that leading ﬁgures make. The big
question is why there is such a difference in these sets of images. The
most likely explanation is not that the author of Laxdæla saga chose to
write a ﬁctional account of the past but, rather, recorded something
close to contemporary views of the past. It is unlikely that the people
who composed Laxdæla saga, on the one hand, and all the contemporary
sagas, on the other, had such one-sided views of the past that they did
not overlap with each other except in the few very broad ways identiﬁed
above. Rather, based on what we know of other societies, it is more
likely that Laxdæla saga was actually written down in a period different
to that in which any of the contemporary sagas were composed. This
is not to say that it was deﬁnitely written earlier than the other texts.
However, an earlier date does seem more likely to me, given the interest
in Helgafell – a farm whose history was of special importance in the
later twelfth century – and the likely distance between the events
recounted and their writing down in the contemporary sagas.

Much of the above account has focused more on geography (i.e. the

relationships between farms) than it has on genealogy. The point is,
however, that in medieval Iceland the two were inseparable. The fact
that in the case of Laxdæla saga we have such a different view of the
relationships of individual farms from what we know of the later
twelfth century and the thirteenth, might suggest that this Saga of
Icelanders was written earlier than the other texts. To suggest this is
signiﬁcant because we might actually have a view of the past which
originates earlier than is usually suggested for Iceland. A fuller assess-
ment of the images of farms and local political relations in other Sagas
of Icelanders might tell us more about their origins than has previously
been recognized.

University of Birmingham

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