Gripla - 01.01.1990, Page 317

OLD NORSE RELIGION IN THE SAGAS OF ICELANDER:
313
grandfather gave him, enjoining him to keep them if he wanted
to retain his reputation; but he said it would be on the wane
thenceforth. Now is the time for me to take up the prosecution,
and press it.
Predictably, Glúm lost the case, but he was still reluctant to leave
Þverá, and sat himself in the place of honour at the time when he had
to depart. Then came Hallbera, mother of Einar, the new master of
Þverá, and addressed him in these words:
komit hefi ek nú eldi á Þverárland, ok geri ek þik nú á brott með
allt þitt, ok er helgat landit Einari, syni mínum.31
I have now taken fire to Þverárland, and I expel you and all
yours, and the land is appropriated to my son Einar.
At this juncture, Glúm could in no way keep his position, and he took
himself off from Þverá.
It is instructive to compare references to Frey with those events here
mentioned, which are in truth the motive force of the story. I shall
turn first to a theological equation, which would have held good in the
tenth century, when Norse paganism was in force in Iceland. In those
days we can expect to find a belief in personified fate, such as the fig-
ure Glúm is said to have dreamt. It may also be reckoned that various
things were considered lucky objects, connected with some kind of be-
lief. It is also plain in various Old Icelandic sources that in pagan times
it was an active and well-known custom to take possession of land by
carrying fire round it. Yet this practice applied exclusively to land not
already belonging to other people; for the person who carried fire
round took possession of the land by this means, according to the laws
of gods and men.32 It will be clear that the above-mentioned beliefs
were in the tenth century assigned a level lower than belief in the
Norse gods themselves. Personal luck, lucky objects, and rites of pos-
session in taking land must all have been subordinate to the gods wor-
shipped, those who controlled the fates of men and things yet to come,
who ruled over the winds and weather, and the fertility of man and
beast.33
31 ÍF IX, p. 89.
32 Dag Strömback, ‘Att helga land’, Folklore och Filologi 1970, p. 135 ff.
33 See Edda Snorra Sturlusonar, ed. (1931), p. 31 ff., 41.