Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1997, Page 173

Hostellers in Landnámabók
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sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.24 Some of this story-telling matter may have
reached Iceland with the original settlers and their followings.25
To return now to the northern environment, food-hawkers, like Qlkofri the
ale-seller at the Althing (Qlkofra þáttr), and rudimentary taverns must have been
early features in the North wherever men congregated in large numbers — ports,
fairs, regular assemblies - but these would have had a commercial objective that
is not suggested in the entries in the three passages from settlement history. Basic
hospitality, in the form of shelter, heat and food, was so fundamental to social
organization and interaction that the failure to offer it is always a remarkable
instance in the narrative literature, a clear and conscious breach of social norms.
The opening stanzas of Hávamálgive a graphic picture of the travel-weary guest
in the hall, stressing the obligations of the host but also the guest’s need for
cautious, moderate behaviour. While lavish generosity was possible only for those
above the subsistence level, doing as well or better for unexpected guests as one
normally did for oneself was an accepted way of enhancing personal honour and
reputation. If the literary sources are credible on this point, hospitality at royal
farms in Norway was a precursor to Church-assisted hospices that post-date the
conversion to Christianity in the tenth century. These sáluhús were established
under ecclesiastical supervision to assist travellers, in particular pilgrims (Bo 1960,
Friberg 1960, Steen 1929). The hospices would have met, under the exceptional
circumstances of a relatively high volume of travellers but low population density
(in wilderness areas such as dense forests, heaths, mountain passes), the normal
expectations that were made of residents everywhere in the early North. The
question is: How much of this could have been expected in settlement-era Iceland
between 874 and 930?
Here immigration circumstances were those, extremely rare in human history,
of a well defmed territorial unit without prior population. The settlers, whether
those coming from Norway or from the Celtic lands, certainly had essential
notions of social organization, jural structures, commercial interaction, etc., and
would also have been aware of potential socio-economic ‘slots’ that might be filled
to advantage, that is, the provision of special goods and services. Settlers with
experience of Ireland or western Scotland would have known of the institution
of hostels maintained by landowners - stockmen and farmers - who invested
their surplus not in locally resident tenants and clients but in the more fluid
population of people on the move, royal functionaries, crafts- and tradesmen,
24 See in particular Simms 1978 and Mac Eoin (forthcoming in ZcP).
25 Einar Ól. Sveinsson (1957) was among the first to identify the Irish contribution to Icelandic
oral tradition, a considerably more plausible development than earlier claims for determining
influence in the creation of a whole literary genre such as the family saga. For a comprehensive
overview of the issues see Gísli Sigurðsson 1988. As one example, albeit of a more learned nature,
the selection of Irish marvels as preserved in Konungs skuggsjá may be the work of an Icelandic
redactor of that text; see the discussion of the anecdote concerning royal justice in Sayers 1985
and that concerning the ‘wild man of the woods’ (cf. the expression verða atgjalti < Olr. geilt),
also ultimately a comment on adequate kingship, in Sayers 1994a.