Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1970, Page 160

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On legal terms in Færeyinga saga
questionable. Presumably the author assumed that a legal court
could be established by either of the leaders in the islands.
(e) The phrase til útlegðar ok fullra sekða offers a confusing
combination. It may be that the author was writing in a
cloudy manner and, despite the specific legal context, did not
intend a specific interpretation of the legal terms he used —
no more than »banishment and full rigour of the law« would
mean in English, perhaps. But his legal terminology elsewhere
and the fact that this does occur in a legal context mean
that we cannot avoid considering the specific possibilities, even
though some doubts must always remain. The root of the
trouble is that, as is well known, the terms útlegð and sekð
in their predominant technical usage mean more or less oppo-
site things in Norwegian and Icelandic. The first generally
means (compoundable) outlawry in Norway, a fine (usually
of three marks of silver) in Iceland; the second generally
means a fine in Norway, a penalty of outlawry in Iceland34.
There seem to be these major possible interpretations:
34 Gg III 667, 685, NgL V s. vv.; K. von Amira, Das altnorwegische
Vollstreckungsverfahren (1874), 48 (45—106); Heusler, Strafrecht, 124—
35; Fehdewesen, 74—6. — Magnús Már Lárusson, KL IV (1959), 606,
notes that »Termen útlegð anvendes í Grágás kun i Ia og II 204, hvor
det drejer sig om no. ret.« Heusler, Strafrecht, 128, note 3, gives 20
examples from íslendinga sggur of útlagr, útlegð, etc. in the sense of
»outlaw(ry)«. The sources are Grettis saga (9 exx.), Njáls saga (5), Harðar
saga (2), Hcensa-Póris saga (1), Reykdcela saga (1), Fóstbrceðra saga (2).
Reykdæla saga might have been written c. 1250 but none of tshe other
texts is from before c. 1270 (the Fóstbræðra saga exx. are in Hauksbók
only). Cf. also H. Magerøy, Studiar i Bandamanna saga (Bibliotheca
Arnamagnæana XVIII, 1957), 58—9 (younger útlaga for older sekjan ok
dræpari). The J2 text of Heimskringla (ed. Finnur Jónsson, 1893—1900,
II 345/19) has sekr for útlægr in no. 8 above. — It may be said in
passing that the difficulty commentators find in the use of útlegð in
Hcensa-Póris saga (A. Heusler, Zwei Islandergeschichten, 2. Aufl., 1913,
xi—xii; Sigurður Nordal og Guðni Jónsson, Borgfirðinga sggur, Islenzk
fornrít III, 1938, 34 and note 1, cf. 41) need not arise if it is equated
with f jgrbaugsgarðr with emphasis on its compoundable nature. This equa-
tion might suit the attribution of the saga to a Norwegian-minded author
in the period 1274—80, see Bjorn Sigfússon, in Saga 1962, 345—70. The