Gripla - 2023, Blaðsíða 151
149THE END OF Á R N A S A G A B I S K U P S
Western-fjords.30 A dismayed Þorvaldr replied he would only relinquish
such a precious object to the bishop and not to Njáll. Þorvaldr now asked
to be allowed to leave for Norway, but this was denied. In response,
Þorvaldr spread the rumour that he had in fact promised the object to
Eiríkr of Norway.
This was a cue for Hrafn Oddsson, as the king’s representative, to
enter the dispute on Þorvaldr’s side. Árna saga is clear about Hrafn’s moti-
vation: ‘Þótti honum [i.e. Hrafn] vænt um er hann hafði veiddan hinn vild-
asta af yfirklerkum biskups ok dregið mjög til sinnar þykkju, ok vilnaðiz
at svá mundu fara fleiri’31 (‘He appreciated having netted the very best of
the bishop’s higher clerics and having won him over to his way of thinking.
He expected to bring more over like him’). Finally, after some wrangling,
the case of the narwhal tooth was mediated by Óláfr Ragnríðarson, the
aforementioned royal emissary, who had been sent to Iceland to facilitate
a settlement in Staðamál. It was agreed that the Skálholt bishop should
bring the tusk to the king, who would himself then choose the man who
had given it, whether Árni or Þorvaldr.
Earlier that same summer (1288) Þorvaldr had attempted to leave
Iceland. Loaded with his wealth, he boarded a vessel at Hvítá that ran
aground at Hvalseyjar in Western Iceland. Árna saga implies that this was a
divinely ordained outcome, as it relates how Þorvaldr mocked the bishop’s
travel-ban as he prayed before departure.32 Next spring, Abbot Runólfr
Sigmundarson of Þykkvibær, the bishop’s caretaker, informed Árni about
both Þorvaldr’s abortive attempt to leave the country and his misdemean-
ours at Holt the previous winter. The prófastr had namely eloped with a
woman and squandered the wealth of his district’s churches. He had also
appropriated Peter’s Pence (Rómarskattur), a tax intended for the defence
of Christendom.33 This is the last we hear of Þorvaldr until his second and
successful attempt to leave for Norway.
There is a curious coda to Þorvaldr’s colourful participation in Árna
saga biskups.34 Konungsannáll for the year 1285 includes this entry: ‘Fundu
30 Ibid., 176.
31 Ibid., 176.
32 Ibid., 187.
33 Ibid., 191.
34 For a study of this episode, see Hermann Pálsson, ‘Landafundurinn árið 1285’, Saga 4
(1964): 53–69.