Gripla - 20.12.2009, Blaðsíða 122
GRIPLA122
ised in freedom-loving farmers of predominantly Norwegian origin. This
could be seen as an expression of the predominant local selfperception.
From the outside, the picture was less clear. In Historia Norwegiæ, a
twelfth-century history composed by a Norwegian, the first settlers Ingólfr
and Hjǫrleifr are said to have left their native Norway because they were
killers (Storm, ed. 1880, 92–93). The inferiority of the (would-be) Ice-
landers is thus beyond question. By fleeing to thule they have turned their
back on civilisation and whatever safe haven they may have found, they
remain criminals – barbarians.
Possibly, this allegation is the reason why the writer of the Melabók
version of Landnámabók is so articulate about his wish to get history right:
“It is important to be able to tell outlanders, who believe that we descend
form thralls or criminals, about our true ancestry … it is mark of all civi
lised peoples that they themselves want to know about the origin of their
country’s habitation” (Landnámabók. Melabók 1921, 143).3 As against the
Norwegian claim to superiority, the Icelandic retort is clear: We, the
Icelanders, descend from men of honour as appropriate historical knowl
edge ascertains.
In some ways this is also the key to the Icelandic sagas written in the
same period. In the sagas, tenthcentury Iceland is depicted as a time of
legal and social integrity, of manly honour and of kin loyalty. There were
deviants, scoundrels and outlaws, but the social dramas were played out on
a scene of original nobility – a nobility that depended on the scoundrels for
their own distinction. Through this literary rehabilitation of the past, and
of the tenth century in particular, an idea of a preChristian era of freedom
and statesmanship was established. This is what Gerd Weber called the
Freiheitsmythos of the Icelanders (Weber 1981). Law, literature and freedom
merge in the tradition of the Icelandic settlers fleeing from the tyranny of
King Harald Fairhair that is but another way of distinguishing oneself
from past compatriots. The literature itself bears witness to what seems
like an ‘auto-civilising’ process – with new claims to distinction in terms of
language, law and descent.
the literary mediation of the dilemma related to the pagan beginnings
3 “en vér þykkjumst heldr svara kunna útlendum mönnum, þá er þeir bregða oss því at vér
séum komnir af þrælum eða illmennum, ef vér vitum víst vorar kynferðir sannar … eru svo
allar vitrar þjóðir at vita vilja upphaf sinna landsbyggða …”. [Normalised by editor]