Gripla - 20.12.2004, Side 107

THE PAST AS GUEST
people and not bring weapons against them, rather let them get first to
a priest ... But if they do otherwise, let them answer for it before God,
and it does not become a lord to let it go without punishment if that
turns out to be the case.
One gets the impression, particularly from the latter half of the description,
that these gestir were dangerous men, not the sort whose sudden appearance
on the threshold of the family home would be apt to inspire celebration. Their
role was to ‘cleanse the realm,’ as it is put in Konungs skuggsjá (ch. 27):
... fleir eru skyldir at halda njósnir um allt ríki konungs ok ver›a varir
ef hann á nökkura óvini í ríki sínu. En ef óvinir ver›a fundnir flá skulu
gestir fyrir koma fleim ef fleir megu flví á lei› koma. ... ok hvar sem
konungr ver›r varr vi› óvini sína flá er flat skyldars‡sla gesta at liggja
á óvinum konungs ok hreinsa svá ríki hans (KS:41).
... they are bound to carry out investigations/spying throughout the
king’s realm and to be aware if he has any enemies in his kingdom.
And if enemies should be found, the gestir are to bring about their
deaths if they are able. ... and wherever the King becomes aware of his
enemies, it is the bound duty of the gestir to do away with the King’s
enemies and thus to cleanse his realm.
Their work lies in distinguishing the enemies of the King from his friends, and
then doing away with the enemies. It is an admirably structuralist sort of job.
But the unavoidable impression given by Hir›skrá 44 is that the gestir were or
were perceived to be both dangerous of themselves and apt to carry out their
duties with varying degrees of precision. This would be a distressing tendency
in any police force.
That these sworn men of the King are called guests is ironic, and the irony
resides in that the social frame of hospitality breaks down around them. They
may, with the King’s blessing, kill those to whom they pay a visit, as great a
breach of the role of the guest as might be imagined. Their prospective hosts,
furthermore, might not be in a welcoming way. In fact, it is exactly their duties
as konungs gestir that make them troublesome as gestir in the more usual
sense.
The dubiousness of the konungs gestir as guests, as participants in the con-
tract of hospitality, is not limited to their activities on duty and away from
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