Gripla - 20.12.2004, Qupperneq 109

THE PAST AS GUEST 107
resist the temptations of raiding, thieving, and bothering women, they may
have begun to resemble the very óvinir whom they were meant to find and
root out. The past in the present imagined as this manner of gestr is likely to
seem all the more like a dangerous item out of place.
It is worth having a look at the wider literature to see if the image of the
konungs gestir we are met with in Konungs skuggsjá and Hir›skrá exists else-
where. A more in-depth study of the topic could certainly be made, but a quick
survey reveals a literary image of the gestir that does not seem to make up
much for their negative portrayal in the laws. Some of the mentions of the
gestir are neutral, included merely to increase the prestige of the king under
whom they serve. Such is the case in Saga Óláfs kyrra, in which we are told
that King Óláfr had sixty gestir in his retinue, whereas earlier kings had had
only thirty.10 In Sturlunga saga, Ásbjörn Gu›mundsson receives nine men
from fiór›r Sighvatsson to serve him as gestir, which is likely the same sort of
detail to do with a chieftain’s status (Sturl. II:15). But among fairly neutral ref-
erences to the gestir, gestamerki, gestalú›r, gestaskip in a number of konunga-
sögur (for references see (Fritzner 1886 I:589)) there are a few episodes that
present an image of the gestir not so dissimilar from that in the laws. In
Magnúss saga berfœtts 18, Icelanders tangle with a gestahöf›ingi named Sóni.
In Haralds saga gilla 7, King Magnús receives advice he does not like and that
the advisor himself concedes is ‘illt rá›,’ namely to send gestir on a mission of
assassination. In Njála 4, none other than Gunnhildr konungsmó›ir sends two
ships with her then-favorite Hrútr. With them she sends ‘inn hraustasta mann,’
the gestahöf›ingi, a man with the less than confidence-inspiring name of Úlfr
óflveginn. These examples on their own do not add up to much, but in Sverris
saga 103 we see the konungs gestir behaving badly in Bergen. The heading in
one manuscript is Frá óspektum í Björgvin, and indeed the gestir rumble
drunkenly with húskarlar, inspiring Sverrir to a speech on the evils of drink in
the next chapter. The gestir do not loom large in Old Norse literature, but the
small figure they cut does not contradict, at least, the dubious character pre-
sented in the legal texts.
There is yet another way in the laws suggest that these gestir threaten to
bring with them disorder, disruption, and boundary violation. Part of Hir›skrá
44 already cited above stresses that the King also bears responsibility for the
tasks he sends his secret police in:
10 The detail appears in both Morkinskinna (1932:290) and Heimskringla I (ÍF XXVI: 207)