Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1997, Blaðsíða 177

Hostellers in Landnámabók 175
ness.34 As Landnámabók makes clearly evident, rhe human Celtic componenr in
the settlement of Iceland and the resulting Celtic coloration of a porrion of rhe
narrative are not suppressed, and a larer patron of the work like Haukr Erlendsson
would trace his descenr back to Irish kings.35 But in the positive advance toward
national social organization, a common law and common Chrisrian fairh, and
evenrually incorporarion in rhe larger Christian European communiry, only rhe
besr and most funcrional parrs of the Celtic contribution, like the best 'blood-li-
nes,' are mainrained. The roadside eldhús or skáli, open to all travellers and
providing food ar no cost but possibly in return for informarion and orher social
advanrage, was not to be among rhe survivors.
But in a slightly differenr way, Geirríðr's hosrel and some Celtic matter do live
on in Eyrbyggja saga. Where she had been generous, perhaps on a Celric model,
her son Þórólfr is extorrionare in challenging and killing Ulfarr for his land, wirh
viking skills likely honed in the West. Þórólfr is a contentious, menacing and
finally murderous presence rhroughour rhe saga: in life as a birter old man, in
death as a draugr, and in yet a third manifesration when some of his malevolent
spirit is ingested with his ashes by a cow that is serviced by a supernatural animal
from rhe sea near rhe saga's end (Ch. 63). Tradirional narrative devices of
parallelism and inversion tie the story rogerher in raur and poinred fashion. The
cow had broken a leg and had been ser to pasture on Ulfarsfell; Þórólfr had been
known in life as bœgifótr from rhe injury suffered in the duel with Úlfarr. The cow
under normal circumstances would have been slaughrered; Þórólfr on rhe orher
hand had refused ro sray dead. While well enough ar home in Norse rradition,
the dapple-grey animal from the sea also has Celtic antecedents in the tarb uisce
'water bull' (cf. Auðun and his aquatic horse, supra). Thus Þórólfr, in his lasr
appearance in rhe prerernatural bull Glæsir rhat is the offspring of this union, is
the cause of the death of yet another good man before rhe srory closes, Þóroddr
Þorbrandsson, who had sought to lay Þórólfr's restless spirit by having the body
burned.
Þórólfr bœgifótrhad a daughter, Geirríðr, named afrer his morher. Her skills as
a sorceress seem borh stronger and more posirive than those of her rival Katla,
but both willingly receive young men, at least Gunnlaugr, into their homes.
Sorcery is nor exclusive ro those with Celtic antecedents but is often found in the
saga world in common with them. Eyrbyggja saga has otherwise a considerable
volume of both supernarural and Celric-related material, well in evidence too in
the corresponding block of Landnámabók entries (roughly S68-90) dealing wirh
rhe Snæfellsnes and Breiðafjprðr areas.36 The hostel motif and succeeding events
^ Here I reverse historical sequence, with name-giving at birth, in favour of narrative logic and
see Kormákr's Irish name as consonant with the persona created in his saga.
35 See Jakob Benediktsson's introduction to Landnámabók 1968, lxxx and following, and Rafnsson
1974, 78.
36 Correspondences between the Irish account of the formation of Loch Neagh and that of the
land-taking of Grímr Ingjaldsson, his son Sel-Þórir, and the packhorse Skálm (Landnámabók
1968, S68, H56) will be explored in a future article.