Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1997, Síða 254

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Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson
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Summary
In Hrafnkels saga we read how the Þjóstarssons, Þorgeir and Þorkell, led
Hrafnkells horse Freyfaxi onto a cliflf ledge; there they blindfolded the animal
and pushed it over the edge. We are told that Freyfaxi fell into a deep river pool,
and was thus disposed of once and for all. The saga states that the cliff was later
known as Freyfaxahamar, and was situated below the farm at Aðalból.
Drawing on both pagan and Christian traditions, this article seeks to examine
the conceptual background of the saga’s account of Freyfaxi’s death. It assesses the
wide-ranging scholarly debate which the incident has generated over the last
seventy years. Particular attention is paid to what is known of horse sacriftce and
other disposal practices, in Scandinavia and further afield, in the late settlement
period depicted by the saga and subsequently. For some scholars the incident
represents the sacrifice of Freyfaxi to Freyr; others see it as a misrepresentation of
such a sacrifice; whilst, for a third group, it reflects a specifically Christian
perspective on the destruction of an evil spirit.
Over many years scholars have found it hard to reconcile the saga account of
Freyfaxi’s death with the actual topography of the location. Below Aðalból there
are no clififs but rather flat grasslands; and in the river there are sandbanks rather
than deep pools. Yet in other respects the landscape of the saga is very much in
line with observable local features.
The present article examines the account of Freyfaxi’s death from a folkloristic
perspective. It concludes that the saga’s account of the horse’s demise could not
possibly have survived in narrative tradition alongside other more realistic mate-
rial in the saga - notably the account of the Þjóstarsson’s attack on Hrafnkell at
Aðalból.
The article argues that Freyfaxi’s death in Hrafnkels saga has little in common
with what is known of Scandinavian traditions of horse sacrifice, and much more
in common with horse disposal practices in Norway after the coming of Chri-
stianity. In their treatment of Freyfaxi the Þjóstarsons act like Christians destroy-
ing sacred sites of old northern paganism.
The article concludes that the description of Freyfaxi’s death is the author’s