Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1970, Page 151

On legal terms in Fareyinga saga
By Peter Foote
How much the Icelandic author of Færeyinga. saga actually
knew about Faroese conditions is a puzzling question1. He
introduced some Faroese place-names, but not many, in his
story, and he got Skúvoy and Stóra Dímun mixed up. He
knew some authentic personal names, and he had heard ex-
cellent stories — ultimately but we cannot tell at what remove
from Faroese sources — about the redoubtable Prándr í Gq>tu
and about feuds in the islands which he linked, as doubtless
others did also, with the leadership of the Faroese and their
conversion to Christianity. Politically the author seems to
think in terms of his own time: the Faroes represented a single
or shared len under the rulers of Norway, and the individual
The following abbreviations are used in the notes: FJ — Finnur Jóns-
son, Færeyingasaga (1927); Gg — Vilhjálmur Finsen, Grágás Ia-b (Codex
Regius, 1852), II (Staðarhólsbók, 1879), III (Skálholtsbók, 1883); Fritzner,
Ordbog — J. Fritzner, Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog (1883—96);
Gul. — Den ældre Gulathings-Lov in NgL I; Heusler, Strafrecht — A.
Heusler, Das Strafrecht der Islándersagas (1911); Heusler, Fehdewesen —
A. Heusler, Zum islándischen Fehdewesen in der Sturlungenzeit (Abh. der
koniglich preussischen Akad. der Wissenchaften, Jahrgang 1912, Phil.-
hist. Cl.); KL — Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder (1956—);
Maurer, Vorlesungen — K. Maurer, Vorlesungen tiber altnordische Rechts-
geschichte I—V (1907—38); NgL — P. A. Munch, R. Keyser, G. Storm,
E. Hertzberg, Norges gamle Love indtil 1387 (1846-—95); ÓH — Ólafur
Halldórsson, Fxreyinga saga (1967); Den store Saga — O. A. Johnsen,
Jón Helgason, Den store Saga om Olav den hellige (1941).
1 For general discussion of this point see P. G. Foote, On the Saga of
the Faroe Islanders (1965), 10—11, 13; ÓH viii—xii.