Gripla - 20.12.2016, Blaðsíða 60

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However, as Þórhallur Vilmundarson has suggested in his ‘náttúru-
nafnakenning’ theory, the origins of place-names that appear to incorpo-
rate a personal name, or to refer to an object (and that are presented on the
basis of this assumption in Landnámabók and the Íslendingasögur), may
in fact have been determined by topographical features rather than com-
memorating an individual or an object. In these instances, place-names
which comprised a descriptive element attached to a natural feature or
place were later reinterpreted as a personal name plus place or natural fea-
ture.18 Subsequently, anecdotal traditions may have been created or grown
up in order to explicitly or implicitly explain the name.
It is striking that in some sagas (for example Egils saga Skalla gríms sonar,
Flóamanna saga, Gull-Þóris saga, Harðar saga ok Hólmverja, Kjalnesinga
saga, Laxdæla saga, Vatnsdæla saga), there is a high concentration of in-
stances where the origins of place-names (both manmade structures and
natural features) are given explicit narratorial explanation. In these sagas
(and also in others, though at a lower frequency), a story is told that ex-
plains how a specific place came to have the name it bears – as a direct
consequence of an event or person associated with that place. In Harðar
saga, for example, of some 130 or so place-names, around 25 or 20% have
some explicit or implicit narrative relevance. a similar proportion is found
in Flóamanna saga (17 of 78 place-names); in Kjalnesinga saga, some 15 out
of 40 (just under 40%) have an explicit or implicit anecdotal explanation.
In other sagas, though, there are very few instances of these explicit place-
name explanations: Njáls saga, for example (which mentions more than
200 place-names in total, the most in any single saga), contains only two
such explicit place-name anecdotes.19
this lack of explicit recourse to place-name anecdotes in Njáls saga is
as striking as the high proportion of them in other sagas – not least con-
sidering the fact that there are many local place-names associated with the
saga and saga characters but not named in the written texts of the saga, or
18 Þórhallur Vilmundarson, Um sagnfræði. Þróun sagnaritunar. Heimspekikenningar um sögu.
Heimildafræði (reykjavík, [n.p.]: 1969), and ‘-stad,’ in Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk
middelalder, vol. 16 (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1971), 578–84. See also Helgi Þorláksson,
‘Sjö örnefni’ and Guðrún Ása Grímsdóttir, ‘Harðar saga og uppsprettur íslenkskra örnefna,’
Skírnir 166 (1992): 451–62.
19 these are found in chapter 72 and chapter 129, where it is explained how Þorgeirsvað and
Káragróf, respectively, acquired their names.