Gripla - 20.12.2009, Blaðsíða 79

79
but during my study of the ruling system which is published in my book
Goðamenning, I became convinced that in all major points, the saga litera­
ture supports the evidence of the law. The question that then arises is how
this system originated.
III
for a long time, the colonization of Iceland was seen as a deliberate quest
for freedom from the oppression of royal power in Norway. It is easy to
read this interpretation from the Icelandic sagas. the Book of Settlements
recounts that some 30 original settlers in Iceland, i.e., around 7% of the
total number of all settlers, fled to Iceland to escape the oppression of king
Harald Fairhair, or left the country after some kind of conflict with him.
only four settlers are said to have emigrated to Iceland after consultation
with the king.2 This indicates strongly that in the 13th century, when the
extant versions of the Book of Settlements were written, it was a well-known
theory that the unification of royal power in Norway in the 9th century,
attributed to King Harald, was an important cause of the colonization of
Iceland. This text was written at the time when the king of Norway was
attempting to gain control of Iceland, and his ambitions no doubt met
some resistance in Iceland although we cannot discern any clear pro- or
anti­royalist parties among the Icelandic elite. It seems at least possible,
perhaps likely, that the stories of settlers fleeing the oppression of king
Harald were intended to comment in some way on the undesirability of
belonging to a kingdom.
the theory of king Harald’s oppression is expressed even more clearly
in Egil’s saga:
In each province king Harald took over all the estates and all the
land, habited or uninhabited, and even the sea and lakes. All the
farmers were made his tenants, and everyone who worked the
forests and dried salt, or hunted on land or at sea, was made to pay
tribute to him.
Many people fled the country to escape this tyranny and settled
various uninhabited parts of many places, to the east in jamtland
2 Gunnar karlsson, Drög að fræðilegri námsbók í íslenskri miðaldasögu I. Landnám, stjórnkerfi
og trú (Reykjavík: Háskóli íslands, 1997), 55.
WAS ICeLAnD tHe GALAPAGoS . . . ?