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moments occur at pivotal places in the landscape. these locations would
have lent dramatic weight to the event for an audience intimately familiar
with the local landscape.
this pattern begins to come into focus the first time the saga has
Þórður leave Miðfjörður. Skeggi, Eiður and Þórður are together on this
trip, and Skeggi has to manage his personal dislike for Þórður with his
obligations to his son, who has moved into Þórður’s household, and his
nephew, who wants to marry Þórður’s sister. the saga highlights that they
did not speak to each other at all during the return trip until they came to
Miðfjörðará. there Skeggi says, “Hér munu vér af baki stíga, því at eg á
við þik, Þórðr, erindi” [‘We should get off our horses here, because I have
request to make of you, Þórður’].60 the request is indeed a weighty one:
Skeggi is asking for Þórður’s sister’s hand in marriage on behalf of his
nephew Ásbjörn. that the saga places this request when the characters
arrive at the river is likely not arbitrary; this river defines the region of
Miðfjörður and reaching it indicates they have arrived in the district. this
speech act, which calls for the unification of the two families, comes short-
ly after Eiður made the following argument as to why his father should
come to Þórður’s aid in a trade dispute: “Hann er ór því heraði, sem þú ert;
hann er ok min lífgjafi ok fóstri” [‘he is from the same district as you are,
and he also saved my life and is my foster-father’]. this location not only
marks that they have come into Miðfjörður, a district they share, but it is
also at the other end of this river, as it empties into the sea, where Þórður
had saved Skeggi’s son’s life earlier in the saga. It is a very fitting location
for Skeggi, the chieftain of Miðfjörður, to make this proposal, one which
would realign the political dynamics of the region.
It may also explain why in Chapter 10 of the Íslenzk fornrit edition,
when Skeggi has arrived at Óslandshlíð in a rage over Þórður’s killing of
Özurr, Þórður invites Skeggi to the location where Özurr is buried. the
beginning of the family alliance, begun at a riverside on the southwest side
of Miðfjörður, is now about to break down at a cliffside on the northeast
side of Skagafjörður. the place is called Sviðgrímshóla,61 and it was a bor-
60 “Þórðar saga hreðu,” 182
61 the exact referent of this place-name has been the subject of lively debate in the local area,
including most recently between Jón Árni friðjónsson, “Þórður hreða í Kolbeinsdal: um
Þórðarsögu, Þórðarrímur og örnefni,” Skagafirðingabók 31 (2008): 121–134, and Sigurjón
Páll Ísaksson, “Hugleiðingar.” What is clear is that it is located out from Óslandshlíð, likely
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