Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2004, Page 58

Frans-Arne Stylegar
the Scottish Northern Isles and W
Norway.
The 'great chains'
However, there is yet another common
aspect of the dykes in Orkney and in W
Norway that should be considered rele-
vant for the Icelandic case, as well. A late
13th century charter from Iceland men-
tions an earthwork fencing off the whole
scattered hamlet of Selvogur in the SW
part of the country from its outfield
(Einarsson, Hansson & Vésteinsson
2003:70). And, indeed, dykes fencing off
areas considerably larger than single
farms are a feature common to W
Norway and the Scottish Northem Isles.
In Orkney, two or three townships
could also be surrounded by a common
dyke. There are a number of examples
for this; the dyke encircling the town-
ships of Netherbrough and Russland in
Harray, Mainland, being one (Sandnes
1996:83). Such 'great chains' seem to
have been a rather widespread feature of
the Orkney landscape, as in many
instances the hill dykes of several town-
ships were connected, such as can be
reconstructed from Murdoch
Mackenzie's charts from 1750 (Stylegar
in press).
"The huge number of stone fences that is
so striking for anyone who wisits Jæren,
are almost all of them from the period after
1800. (...) The fences of olden days could
mn for several kilometres, and had no
obvious connection with the farm bound-
aries of recent times. (...) They are usual-
ly only visible as long ridges, and only sel-
dom are any stones visible above the sur-
face".
(Aanestad 1911:555)
Thus wrote the agronomist Sigurd
Aanestad, looking back from his vantage
point in 1911, at the very end of a period
which had witnessed huge improvements
in agricultural methods and practices and
the resulting enormous changes to the
settlement stmcture and the cultural land-
scape of his native Jæren.
These 'fences of olden days' were the
hill dykes. In the more densely settled
regions in W Norway, for instance in the
lower-lying settlement districts in Jæren,
the hill dyke of one farm might be linked
to the hill dykes of a number of other
farms, thus constituting a great chain that
joined several neighbouring farms. In
many cases, some or all of the farms
within such a system of dykes had some
sort of common arrangement for the
exploitation of the different resources in
the outlands - be it pasture, peat cutting,
hunting, or fisheries.
There are a number of good examples
from Jæren, as well as from the other SW
and W counties. When it comes to the
question of common use rights, an inter-
esting case in point is Vik in Sogn og
Fjordane county, where c. 20 farms had
their homelands within one 'bogard', i.e.
hill dyke. In early spring and late autumn
the gates in the hill dyke were thrown
open, and the animals from all the farms
were allowed to roam free and graze on
the arable lands in this whole area. This
system lasted until the 1860s
(Frimannslund 1961).
Some characteristic features seem to
distinguish many of the areas within such
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