Múlaþing: byggðasögurit Austurlands - 01.01.1991, Page 29

MÚLAÞING
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Sami: Old Norse Religion in the Sagas of Icelanders. Reykjavík 1990.
(Gripla VII, 303-322).
Macrae-Gibson, O.D.: The Topography of Hrafnkels Saga. London 1976.
(,Saga-Book of the Viking Society, 239-263).
Páll Gíslason: Jökuldalur. Sveitarlýsing. 1974. (Sveitir og jarðir í Múlaþingil,
239-310).
Sigurður Gunnarsson: Örnefni frá Jökulsá í Axarfirði austan að Skeiðará.
Kaupmannahöfn 1886. (Safn til sögu íslands og íslenzkra bókmenta að fornu og
nýju II, 429-497).
Stefán Aðalsteinsson: Leitað að kumli fornaldarkonu á Efra-Jökul-
dal. Egilsstaðir 1976. (Múlaþing 8, 174-176).
Sami: Leitað bæjarrústa við Hitahnúk á Jökuldal. Egilsstaðir 1980. (Múla-
þing 10, 192-195).
Sveinbjörn Rafnsson: Byggðaleifar í Hrafnkelsdal og á Brúardölum. Reykja-
vík 1990. (Rit Hins íslenska fornleifafélags I).
The Jökulsdalur men and Hallfreðargata
The topography of Hrafnkels saga Freysgoða
Summary
In this article, Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson examines Hrafnkels saga
Freysgoða from the viewpoint of local legend and topography. Acc-
ording to Aðalsteinsson, the study of local legends can often be extre-
mely useful when examining the Icelandic sagas, since both this, and
topographical evidence can shed a great deal of light on certain acc-
ounts that on the surface appear to be obscure.
The inhabitants of Jökulsdalur are only briefly mentioned in Hrafn-
kels saga, which states that Hrafnkell „forced the men of Jökulsdalur
to submit to his authority“, and that „he was kind and just to his own
men, but harsh and ruthless to the men of Jökulsdalur“. On closer
examination of the topography of the story, it seems clear that certain
central characters (i.e. Bjarni, Sámur’s father, and Sámur himself) did
not live in Hrafnkelsdalur as is often believed, but instead came from
Jökulsdalur. This therefore substantiates the earlier statement which
was probably based on original local legend.
The second part of the article deals with Hallfreðargata, about
which there has been much controversy amongst scholars. In many
editions, the original statement that Hallfreðargata „ran above the
hills (’fell’) in the Fljótsdalur district (i.e. Fljótsdals/íérað)“ has been
altered to place the hills on the Fljótsdalur moor (Fljótsdals/íe/ði).