Lögberg-Heimskringla - 12.10.1979, Side 2

Lögberg-Heimskringla, föstudagur 12. október, 1979
EARLY ICELANDIC CHRISTIANITY COMES TO TORONTO
Miss Margaret Rose Harry successfully defended her doct-
oral uissertation entiteied An Etíition of Kristni Saga, with
Notes and Commentary, at the Univérsity of Toronto School
of Graduate Studies on August 22, 1979.
Dr. Harry had previously obtained a B.A. degree from
the University of London, England, and an M.A. in Old
Icelandic from the University of Manitoba. Her Introduct-
ion contains a great number of insightful observations. She
has produced the first definitive edition of the two extant
manuscripts of the saga and added its first continous English
translation, which greatly enhances the value of the entire
work.
A special program circulated on the occasion of Dr.
Harry’s oral defense contains the following statement:
“Kristni Saga, a late thirteenth-century history of the
conversion of Iceiand to Christianity and the establishment
there of an institutionalized church, has generally received
little critical attention. Since the saga is iargely dependent
upon eariier sources, yet departs considerably from Ari the
Learned’s account of the same events in Islendingabók,
A burst of Christ from acrucifix from Ufsir in
Svarfaðardalur
seeming to prefer the reputedly unreliable work of Gunn-
laugr Leifsson, it has not usually been thought worthy of
an mdependent and detailed critical examination. However,
it presents a rare opportumty to uncover the actual process
of compiiation itself, for ín almost all cases its sources are
not only identifiable but also extant.
One af the problems in dealing _with the saga is that, in
spite of the fact that only two manuscript versions exist,
one a seventeenth-century copy of the other, which is now
very defective early 14th-century copy, oniy- the mediaevál
version has ever been edited to any extent. The result is
that existing editions of the saga give little indication of
possible textual problems, and provide no basis of compar-
ison by which the relative reliability of the seventeenth-
century copy may be discerned (a point of some importance
in view of the extensive lacunae in the mediaeval text). A
further result of both this editorial insufíiciency and the
general critical disregard has been that no complete English
translation of the saga has previously been made.
The procedure, therefore, has been to establish the texts
of the two manuscripts and to provide a textual introduction
and notes. The. sources of the saga have been identiíied, and
an attempt has been made to examine the criteria of sel'éct-
ion used by the saga-author. Finally, an English translation,
with extensive notes, has been appended to the study.
The result of the study is that the saga emerges as an
interesting exercise in the writing of history. The decisions
made by the saga-author reflect historical problems that
are frequently ignored and, while these decisions do not
oíten appear to be historically justified, they sometimes
throw the supposedly more reliable earlier sources, includ-
ing Ari’s Islendingabók, into doubt. They aiso demonstrate
the extent to which the various accounts may have been
affected by literary and other factors, particularly a tend-
ency to rationaiize events and to set them in order, that, in
spite of the authority of Snorri Sturluson, should be historic-
ally unacceptable.”
It is of interest to note that the Icelanders must have
known about the Christian religion from the beginning of
the Age of Settlement (874-930). In the beginning their
associations with the new religion were confined to Ireland,
but Irish Christianity differed a good deal from the Roman
Catholic ),radition. The Irish Church, for example, did not
recognize the supremacy of the Pope until 1152. Many of
the people who orgiginally moved to Iceland from the
Western Islands (The Norse Colonies in Britain) seem to
have moved between heathen and ■ Christian beliefs. Helgi
the Lean, a settler in Eyjafjörður, who “believed in Christ
but invoked Thor when it came to voyages and difficult
times”, is a good example of these unsettled religious atti-
tudes. Thor and Christ were indeed seen as rivals. Their
similar functions within the two religious systems may have
provided at least one of the reasons for this. Both were
perhaps regarded as the executors of divine directives.
Kristni Saga not only reflects this tension but presents
highly intriguing reports on the írustrating attempts of
pioneer Christian missionaries to convert the Icelanders.
With Dr. Harry’s permission we reproduce a small
portion of her new translation of Kristni Saga.
“THE SLAYING OF SKEGGJABJÖRN
And when Þangbrandr taught the faith before men in Ice-
land, then many took it upon themselves to slander him.
Þorvaldr the Ailing, who lived at Vik in Grimsnes, did this.
He composed verses about Þangbrandrf and to the poet
Úlfr he recited this stanza:
Straight to the fearless Úlfr Uggason
I shall send a message
(for I do not dislike the ruler of weapons)
that he, endower of the spear-storm,
should expel
the perverse oííender agamst the gods,
since he blasphemes against the gods,
and I shall expel the other.
Úlfr spoke this in repiy:
I am not tempted by the fly,
do not accept the message,
though the sender be a proven swimmer
in the fjord of Hárbarðr’s house;
it is not, keeper of the cabin-horse,
like me to swallow a fly;
the reports going around are wrong;
I foresee great harm from it.
Vetrliði the Poet also composed a slander about Þang-
brands, and so did many others. And when they came west
into Fljótshlið and Guðleifr Arason from Reykjahólar was
with him, then they learned that Vetrliði the Poet was cut-
ting peat with his servants. Þangbrandr and his men went
to him and killed him there. This was said about Guðleifr:
In the land the téster of shields
travelled south to lunge with weapons
into the mead-vessel’s forge
of Baldr’s rust-hater’s bed;
the valiant battle-performer
caused a slaughter hammer to scream
into the hatland’s anvil
of Vetrliði the Poet.
From there they went west into Grimsnes and met
Þorvaidr the Aiiing near Hestaiækur and slew him there.
From there they turned back and siayed with Hallr a second
winter. And in the spring Þangbrandr got his ship ready for
the sea. That summer Þangbrandr was prosecuted and con-
demned to outiawry for these manslaughters. He put out
to sea but was driven back ínto Lorgarfjörður to Hitará.
There down beyond Skiphyiur it is now cailed Þangbrands-
hróf, and his mooring stone still stands there on a rock.
And when Þangi^randr and his men had arrived there, the
men of the district met in order to forbid all trade with
them. Þangbrandr came to Krossolt and song mess there,
and raised a cross fhere. There was a man calied Kolr, who
lived in Lækjarbugur. He had so much food that he scarc-
ely knew what he should do with it. Þangbrandr went to
the place and demanded to buy íood from him; but he would
Framh. á bls. 3
rqkkar gamlir
ÞAGNA ÞRÁTT
Ofangreindar ljóðlínur
skáldsins hljóta æ að koma í
hug hverjum þeim Islendingi
sem hugleiðir tóvinnu fyrri
aldar. Þá voru spunarokkar
af ýmsum stærðum á hverju
íslenzku heimili. Þá þaut í
hnokkum og snúð og hlaupa-
stelpan tifaði án afláts. Þessi
iðja er þó löngu orðin hluti
af liðinni tíð. Um hana má
lesa í bókum og spunaáhöld-
in gömlu hafa nú prýtt þjóð-
minjasöfn bæði vestan hafs
og austan um langa hríð.
Saga íslenzka spunarokks-
ins er enn óskráður þáttur í
menningarsögunni. — Margt
bendir þó til þess að á Isiandi
hafi gerð hans frá upphafi
fram á þessa öld verið með
svipuðu sniði þó að á ýmsu
ylti um stærð.
Hér í Vesturheimi var loks
ins brotið blað í hefðbund-
inni spunamennsku. Þar var
að verki þjóðhagasmiðurinn
Þorsteinn Sveinsson bóndi á
Svalbakka í Nýja Islandi. —
Hann gjörbreytti sniðinu, og
urðu rokkar hans vinsælir og
náðu talsverðri útbreiðslu.
Þorsteinn reisti bæ sinn árið
1889, þá nýkvæntur Guð-
björgu Guðmundsdóttur. —
Bæjarnafnið bendir til að
Þorsteini hafi þótt anda
köldu af Winnipegvatni. „1
þessum heimi er éls von”,
mælti skáldið. Þau Þorsteinn
og Guðbjörg bjuggu á Sval-
bakka til ársins 1945, en það
ár andaðist Þorsteinn.
Smiðsins á Svalbakka verð
ur lengi rninnzt í Islendinga-
byggðum við Winnipegvatn.
Hann reisti ramgjör hús,
gerði sjálfur margbrotin
smíðatól svo sem rennibekk
og aðra nytsamlega hluti sem
bera vitni um fágæta hug-
vitsemi. Flestir munu þó
fyrst staðnæmast við rokk-
ana sem fyrr voru nefndir.
Magnús Elíason, systur-
sonur Þorsteins, útvegaði
blaðinu meðfylgjandi teikn-
ingu. Hún skýrir sig sjálf.