Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags - 01.01.1967, Blaðsíða 66

70 ÁRBÓK FORNLEIFAFÉLAGSINS
SUMMARY
The starting-point of the present paper is an article written by the well known
Danish scholar Japetus Steenstrup and published in Aarboger for nordisk Oldkynd-
ighed og Historie 1871. In his paper Steenstrup discusses the natural phenomenon
called hafgerðingar, sometimes referred to in medieval Icelandic sources and de-
scribed at some length in the Norwegian King's Mirror (Konungsskuggsjá, Speculum
Regale). Steenstrup tried to show that the hafgerðingar very probably were due
to submarine earthquake and he brought together a good many accounts from
his own times in order to throw light upon the phenomenon described in the
King's Mirror. Moreover he thought that the description in the King's Mirror
was based on one certain hafgerðingar, namely the one which caused the Hafgerð-
ingadrápa to be composed by a Hebridean on board Herjúlfur Bjarnason's boat
heading for Greenland in the year 986, as related in the Grænlendinga saga in
the Flateyjarbók. Steenstrup also believed that the hafgerðingar which gave rise
to the Hafgerðingadrápa, also was the cause of the disaster, which struck the fleet
of Erik the Red and his followers on their way to Greenland in the same year.
The present author finds that the two last of Steenstrup's points really are pure
guesswork, but he admits that hafgerðingar as described in the King's Mirror could
have been caused by earthquake on the bottom of the sea. The true aim of the
article, however, is to show that the term hafgerðingar in the old Icelandic and
Norwegian sources was used in a wider sense than assumed by Steenstrup. In the
author's opinion any sudden and violent turbulence of the sea might have been
called hafgerðingar, no matter which natural forces caused it. In order to prove his
point he quotes a séries of accounts from the experience of Icelandic sailors and
fishermen in later times. Some of the phenomena described in these accounts of
eyewitnesses could, in the author's opinion, serve as illustrations to the hafgerð-
ingar of the King's Mirror and other medieval writings.