Gripla - 20.12.2016, Blaðsíða 62

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Holtsmark notes that the presentation of these men is curious, to say
the least: “Hva er dette for slags følge å møte opp hos en konge med? troll
og løysinger og tusser! … “tolv berserker” er et vanlig motiv i sagaene …
Skallagrims følgesmenn er hamramme” [‘What kind of a following is this
to arrive before the king? trolls and lowlifes and freaks! … “twelve ber-
serkers” is a common motif in the sagas … Skalla-Grímur’s followers are
shapeshifters’].21 Holtsmark argues that these men’s function in the narra-
tive is limited and that it is unlikely they represent any real ‘historical’ tra-
dition; where, then, she asks, did the author get the names of these repro-
bates from? Could it have been the names were ‘documented’ in Mýrasýsla
place-names?22 the way in which the saga lists the followers and their new
farms (all of which derive their names from the followers, according to the
saga’s rhetoric) is suspiciously neat in Holtsmark’s opinion: “Spørsmålet
er om det er gjort på grunnlag av en ættetradisjon om Skallagrims følge,
eller om sagaforfatteren har diktet opp det groteske følget på grunnlag av
stedsnavn han fant i omegnen av Borg” [‘the question is whether this was
done on the basis of a family tradition about Skalla-Grímur’s following, or
whether the saga author conjured up this grotesque company on the basis
of place-names he found in the vicinity of Borg’].23 Holtsmark’s answer
tends to the latter of the two possibilities.24
Parallel instances to this – that is, clusters of place-name explanations
being associated with followers of the principal settler and presented early
on in the narrative, in the sections that describe the arrival and establish-
ment of the protagonists – can be found in Laxdæla saga (chs. 5–6) and
Kjalnesinga saga (chs. 2–3). there are also examples in Bárðar saga (chs.
3–4) but Bárðar saga, together with Harðar saga, is characterised by re-
course to this ‘place-name explanation’ rhetoric throughout its narrative.
the issue of whether saga authors concocted anecdotes on the basis of
place-names, or drew on ‘genuine’ traditions associated with place-names
21 ‘Skallagrims heimamenn,’ Maal og minne 7 (1971): 97–105, at 99.
22 ‘Skallagrims heimamenn,’ 100.
23 ‘Skallagrims heimamenn,’ 101.
24 “Gårdene med navn etter folk med underlige tilnavn har ligget der omkring ham som forfat-
tet Egils saga først på 1200-tallet, og han har av navnene laget set et bilde av Skallagrims
følge” [‘farms with place-names derived from people with strange bynames surrounded
the person who first authored Egils saga in the thirteenth century, and from these names he
conjured up a picture of Skalla-Grímur’s following’], ‘Skallagrims heimamenn,’ 103.