Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1970, Page 164

172
On legal terms in Færeyinga saga
der ydedes i form af et vist bødebeløb, hvis størrelse rettede
sig efter den krænkedes stand«47.
In saying rettarfar sitt ok annarra the author might merely
mean, in unspecific terms, that the boy had learnt what his
position under the law was and what the positions of other
people were, but it seems much more likely that he meant
that the boy knew what his »right« and what other people’s
»rights« were in accordance with the concrete definitions given
above. That being so, however, the writer must have been
thinking not of a system like that in Iceland, where payments
as personal satisfaction of this kind were not graded, but of a
system like the Norwegian one, under which social status
dictated the size of the sum to be paid. A similar system was
introduced in Iceland with ]ónsbókiS, but of course Icelanders
were familiar with such an arrangement long before then —
they themselves took hauldsrettr when they were in Norway
(and not resident for more than three years)49. In his phrasing
here the author again seems to have been content to remind
an audience that the place he was talking about was not Ice-
land.
The author of Feereyinga saga knew something — perhaps
rather a lot — about Norwegian legal matters, a fact that
would need to be taken into account in any discussion about
his identity or milieu, though I forbear from speculation on
such matters at this moment. A point that might be made in
passing, however, is the difficulty we should be in if we did
not know that Færeyinga saga was written before Snorri’s
Óláfs saga helga and were unable to assume that it has not
undergone detailed revision at any stage. On the basis of the
legal terminology alone one would be under strong temptation
to explain such a mixture of Icelandic and Norwegian vocabu-
lary and notions as a post-Jónsbók author’s projections into
47 NgL V s. w.
48 Cf. e. g. Gunnar Thoroddsen, Fjólmæli (1967), 95—7.
49 Cf. e. g. Jón Jóhannesson, Islendinga saga I (1956), 135—6; G. A.
Blom, Kongemagt og privilegier i Norge inntil 1387 (1967), 63—6.