Gripla - 20.12.2017, Page 58

GRIPLA58
[I will agree to this, if my brothers are willing, to pay money for the
killing of Bolli, such as men judge who are taken as arbitrators; but
I want to make an exception for all kinds of outlawry, and for my
chieftaincy, and my landholdings; the same should be said of the
landholdings of my brothers, where they live; I also want to exempt
their possessions from this settlement.]
Yet Hjarðarholt apparently ends up in Snorri goði’s family anyway.
This agreement is made just before Þorsteinn reveals his interest in the
land. It is a convenient situation (in the way that many situations are for
Snorri goði) that Halldórr ends up in Snorri’s debt. Halldórr agrees to pay
an unstipulated, but presumably large, sum of money for a peaceful settle-
ment, and finds himself with the farm that he insisted on keeping, but with
too few animals to make the most of it. With a son of a marriageable age,
who goes unmentioned by Laxdœla saga, we might imagine that the next
arrangement between Halldórr and Snorri was easily completed.
Just as the wood-axe with which Þorsteinn Kuggason was threatened
made Barði Guðmundsson and Sigurður nordal think of Snorri’s other
enemies in Eyrbyggja saga, so the fate of Hjarðarholt might recall Snorri’s
first success: tricking his uncle into selling him the farm at Helgafell for a
fraction of its worth. His land-grabs in Eyrbyggja saga are just as important
to his growing power as his political and martial victories are, as could
be inferred from the way in which Eyrbyggja saga describes the marriages
made for his daughters, followed by the land inherited by his sons.57 The
desirability of Hjarðarholt itself is not to be questioned; Laxdœla saga’s
description of Óláfr pái’s processional moving-in and of the lavish standard
in which he lived there evoke a wealthy piece of land.
Considering this, it is not so far-fetched to suggest that the scene
between Þorsteinn, Þorkell and Halldórr had some basis in tradition.
Þorsteinn’s interest in the land was more than simple opportunism: his
foster-son was Ásgeirr, the son of Kjartan Óláfsson. Kjartan was killed
before he could inherit Hjarðarholt from Óláfr pái, but it is reasonable
to expect that the farm might have been passed on to him; addition-
ally, Þorsteinn’s step-father was Kjartan and Halldórr’s brother, Steinþórr
57 Jesse Byock, Viking Age Iceland (St Ives: Penguin, 2001), ch. 6; Eyrbyggja saga, 180–83.