Gripla - 01.01.1977, Page 13

JOURNEY TO THE NJÁLA COUNTRY
9
at all events from the 16th to early 18th century; but during the 18th
century a large volume of water began to flow into the Þverá, and
Hlíðarendi went into a decline, as may be seen from the poems of
Bjarni Thorarensen.
With regard to other farms on the slopes of Fljótshlíð, most of these
will be found with the same names and on the same sites as when the
saga was written, though of course the buildings are very different. A
few names have disappeared, though the locations of some of the farms
that have been abandoned are known. The only roads then were horse-
tracks, except perhaps for causeways across the marshes; bridges were
few, though ferries were by no means uncommon.
Coming to point two in our examination of differences between Njála
and present reality, where the saga places and place-names do not
appear to agree with those of later times we should bear in mind the
fact that, right up to our own times, Njála has always been a living
literature in this country. As a result people have been possessed by a
burning urge to identify all the places mentioned in the saga or to name
them after its characters. There is evidence of this both at Hlíðarendi
and Bergþórshvoll, and you will find most of it mentioned in my edition
of Njáls Saga. To take one or two instances: in the saga we read of
Gunnar’s burial mound. Up here on the crest of the slope there is a
feature known as ‘Gunnarshaugur’; however in the 18th century Eggert
Olafsson pointed out that this ‘mound’ was not made by the hand of
man. Besides, there is a tradition probably dating from the beginning
of the same century to the effect that Gunnar’s burial-mound was some-
where at the foot of the slope below the farm, which could well fit in
with the Reykjabók manuscript reading on the subject. It is quite pos-
sible that this feature was obliterated when the water from Markarfljót
began to flow into Þverá, and inevitably a new grave-mound was sub-
stituted.
Again, people have been very anxious to find the site of Gunnar’s
‘skáli’. Some have located it in a hollow in the slope to the north-east of
the farm. But the ground there is sloping and unsuitable for a house,
and in fact archeologists have shown that no traces of human building
are to be found there. It is a natural surmise that the ‘skáli’ stood on the
site where the old farm was formerly located, a portion of which is still
visible. There, under a heap of earth and rubbish, perhaps the floor of