Gripla - 01.01.1975, Page 144

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GRIPLA
(where Hafliði Másson feels compelled to protect his nephew, Már
Bergþórsson in spite of his contempt for the man himself, but supports
him fyrir frœndsemi sakir / ch. 6 /) rests upon this conception (see also
Sturlu Saga, ch. 30 where Guðmundr dýri helps Páll Sölvason in a bad
affair, because he is married to Arndís, Páll’s daughter; ibidem, ís-
lendinga Saga, ch. 39; Þórðar Saga Kakala, ch. 2; Þorgils Saga Skarða,
ch. 20).
However, although the consciousness of belonging to a family group
is nowhere absent from the mind of an Icelander, the religious or
sacred strength of the link seems more or less lost, mainly for political
or economic reasons. The œtt is no longer a sacred community (as
shown by M. Cahen),1 but a collectivity united by bloodties, possibly
by affection, but chiefly through common interests and tradition, and
all this, in a direction which tends towards a rationalization of the
situation. Otherwise what way is there of explaining Guðmundr dýri’s
barbaric remark, that it would make no difference even if his daughter
was included in the burning of Langahlíð (Guðmundar Saga Dýra, ch.
14), or the not less cruel reply of Eyjólfr Rögnvaldsson to his father
who is inside the bœjarhús at Breiðabólsstaðr when it is set fire to.
Eyjólfr calls to him three times to come out, and as the old man re-
fuses, Eyjólfr shouts: ‘Brenndu þar þá, djöfulskarlinn!’ (Þorgils Saga
Skarða, ch. 32). Thus when Heusler declares2 that one never sees
father pitched against son, or brother against brother, he probably for-
gets the tumultuous family of the Sturlungar!
The family cult had been responsible for the general organization
of the house,3 for its sacred character, and for the solidarity which
reigned among its members4 (visible in particular in the relations be-
tween master and servants). However, it is hard to say that many
conscious traces of this cult remain in the mind of the Icelanders in
the Age of the Sturlungar. If the öndvegi is still the seat of honour
in the skáli, it is rarely called by its name (Geirmundar Þáttr Heljar-
1 La Libation, Paris, 1921, p. 5 and p. 9.
2 Zum islandischen Fehdewesen in der Sturlungenzeit, Berlin, 1912, p. 36.
3 See V. Guðmundsson: Privatboligen pá Island i sagatiden, Kpbenhavn, 1889,
passim.
4 A. Pálsson: Sambúð húsbænda og hjúa á lýðveldistímanum, in Skírnir CV,
1931, pp. 218 and 235: ‘The house was a place of peace.’