Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1970, Síða 155

On legal terms in Færeyinga saga
163
known thoughout the Scandinavian world in Christian times
as a means of strengthening an assertion or as an ultimate
test where a defence could not be substantiated by oaths or
witnesses10.
(3) The word óbótamaðr here appears to have its normal
Norwegian legal sense of irredeemable outlaw, a (living) man
from whom, or on whose behalf, no atonement is acceptable
— if Sigurðr were found guilty of morð, this would be his
situation. In Icelandic, on the other hand, the term is not
common, and when it occurs it has another aspect, being used
of a (dead) man for whose killing no atonement can be ex-
pected — the same as ógildr* 11. We cannot tell whether the
word here is due to Snorri or the author of the saga, but it may
be noted that in Egils saga, ch. 82, the word is used in its Ice-
landic sense12, and many people nowadays are disposed to
attribute that saga to Snorri.
(4) The only places where Gilli is given a title outside these
chapters extant in Óláfs saga helga is in text only known to
us in Flateyjarbók. There he is called Iqgmaðr, but no signi-
ficance can be attached to this because the same term is consis-
tently used in Flateyjarbók where Snorri’s text has Iggsggu-
maðr (other manuscripts of Den store Saga make the same
alteration)13. We can however be confident that in the origi-
nal Færeyinga saga Gilli was given some title referring to his
10 See e. g. KL V (1960), 551—5 (Lars Hamre, Magnús Már Lárusson).
11 Karl von Amira, Das altnorwegische Vollstreckungsverfahren (1874),
19; Maurer, Vorlesungen V 71; Heusler, Strafrecbt, 117, especially note
3. One might perhaps argue that the posthumous aspect was also to the
fore in the definition in Den ældre Eidsivathings-Christenret, II 40 (NgL I
405): Gridnidingar. trygrofue. hæimsoknar vargar. piofuar doemddr. drot-
tens suikarar. morduargar. brænnu vargar. ])æir ero aller obota men ok
æi græfuer i kirkiu garde.
12 Finnur Jónsson, Egils saga Skallagrímssonar (Altnordische Saga-
Bibliothek 3, 1894), 281, note to 19; Halldór Halldórsson, Egluskýringar
(1967), 101.
13 FJ 69/20, 70/17, ÓH 96, 97. See FJ 60, note to 21, ÓH 124, note
2 to oh. 48 (read »Gilli« for »Leifur«); cf. variant readings in Den store
Saga, 332/3, 361/12, 413/3, 419/9, 11 (whence FJ 69/6).