Saga - 1977, Page 79
ÞRÆLAHALD Á ÍSLANDI
73
til þess að fæla menn frá þeim, heldur ætti þessi tortryggni
að hvetja til nákvæmari rannsókna á þeim málfræðilegu,
bókmenntalegu, þjóðháttafræðilegu og lögfræðilegu þátt-
um, sem þær eru ofnar úr. Þær eru vandmeðfarnar sem
félagsfræðilegar heimildir, en það ætti einmitt að örva
sagnfræðinginn til dáða.
(Guðrún Guðmundsdóttir þýddi úr ensku.)
SLAVERY IN ICELAND — SUMMARY.
The paper reviews and samples the evidence for the existence and
nature of slavery in Iceland to be drawn from Islendinga sögur and
Landnámabók, place-names and appellatives, linguistic usage and
proverbial expressions, and archaeology. The evidence is found in-
adequate for reliable historical reconstruction: stories are stereo-
type; linguistic facts are meagre and need more comparative study;
place-names are rare — the most significant is Leysingjastaðir,
”Freed-man’s steading”, but only 3 of these are known among some
1150 staöir-names; the rather common þrælsgerði, ”slave’s enclo-
sure“, seems never to have been a habitation name and probably
became a popular appellative only in early modern times.
Much more substantial and varied information is to be found in
scattered articles in the law-texts known collectively as Grágás.
The laws recognise penal slavery and debt slavery as well as the
slavery that resulted from birth, purchase or capture. The laws
show that freeing a slave was a simple process and mutual ties
between former slave and former owner were soon dissolved; the
situation compares favourably with what obtained in mainland
Scandinavia.
Penal slavery is not mentioned in other sources, but one debt slave
is mentioned in Ljósvetninga saga, written c. 1240 but referring in
this particular to the period c. 1050—60. The latter date coincides
with the other latest reference to a slave in Iceland, in Draumur
Lorsteins Síðu-Hallssonar — Þorsteinn was killed by an Irish slave
c. 1050.
A review of the probable development of slave-keeping in Iceland
sPggests that the original slaves were limited in number and of
comparatively good quality. Political and economic reasons led to
easy and early freedom for the able-bodied. There is no need to be-
lieve that population control by exposure of newborn children was