Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2013, Page 32

SÓLVEIG GUÐMUNDSDÓTTIR BECK
hunt on privately owned land, most likely
because the owners themselves made
good use of them for meat and/or eggs.
Ravens, falcons, plovers, curlews and
other small birds could be hunted
anywhere although raptors, and other
carrion eating birds, were a forbidden
food source. The Icelandic sagas contain
very little information on bird exploitation
but Landnámabók (ÍF I 1986, 330) for
example tells of a man called
Molda-Gnúpur who laid claim to land
between Kúðafljót and Eyjará, an area
called Álftaver in the south of Iceland.
According to the text there was a large
lake in the area at the time where swans
gathered and were supposedly hunted. In
Droplaugarsona Saga (IF XI 1950, 145)
two brothers, Helgi and Grímur, go out
together to kill someone under the guise of
hunting for ptarmigan (see text box).
Eider ducks have most likely been
exploited (for eggs and possibly down) in
Iceland at least since the early 12th
century. Diplomatarium Islandicum tells
of the people of Viðey complaining about
their neighbours, Gufunesingar, hunting
Eider ducks close to their territory around
1143 (DI I, 496-497). In 1253 down
bedding was supposedly lost in
Flugumýrarbrenna (Sturlunga Saga II
1988, 642) but whether they were made of
eiderdown or other types of down and/or
feathers is unknown. From the
information Berglund (2009, 125-130)
puts forth in her article “Fugela Feðerum
in archaeological perspective” it can be
inferred that collecting down and feather
for bedding was likely well known in
Norway by the end of the 9th century
when Iceland was settled. So it is not
unreasonable to suggest that the settlers
already knew how to exploit the Eider
duck when they arrived in Iceland.
According to Þórðarson (1957, 33) as yet
the oldest historical evidence of the export
of Icelandic falcons is fforn 1169 during
the reign of King Henry II. The falcon
trade mostly petered out around the
beginning of the Napoleonic Wars due to
exorbitant transport costs and waning
interest and in 1810 it was officially ended
(Þórðarson 1957, 125-126, 128).
“En um morgininn stóðu þeir [Helgi
og Grímur] snimma upp. Gróa spyrr,
hvat þeir skyldi þá. Þeir segja:
“Rjúpur skulum vér veiða. ””
(ÍF XI1950, 145)
Birds of a feather,
plucked together
Hunting and trapping
Before guns became common in the 19th
century (Jónasson 1945, 194; Magnússon
1995, 28-35; ÞÞ 6330) nets and snares
seem to have been the most common tools
in hunting smaller birds like ptarmigan
and sea birds like e.g. Fulmars, auks and
gulls (table 1). Ptarmigans were usually
hunted with the help of a long rope
(vaður), which was either made of hemp
or coarser fibres of wool (Jónasson 1945,
194; ÞÞ 742). The rope was stretched
between two hunters and positioned in the
birds’ path during the hunt. In the middle
of the rope there were usually two or three
snares or a net. The snares were usually
made of dark tail hair from a horse as they
were more easily seen by the hunters