Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1975, Page 47

How old is the Faroese grannastevnaf
55
meeting meant and what business could be there transacted.17
Whether, as I believe the available evidence indicates, the
grannastevna originated with the Reskripter of 1757 and 1775
and the name was applied to it during Tillisch’s period of office
as amtmand; or whether, as in the traditional view, the granna-
stevna and its name are of great antiquity in the Faroe Islands,
there can still be no question that the importance of this
meeting became greatly enhanced during the period 1836—43.
The minuting of grannastevna business began in response to a
letter from sorinskrivari G. F. Tillisch, dated 16 July 1842.
Tillisch complained that disputes were too commonly arising
over what had been decided at grannastevnur, and suggested
that there should be a special record book. Ployen, in reply,
suggested the use of the Politi-Protokoller for this purpose, and
issued the necessary orders to the sysselmænd on 28 July 1842.20
In consequence, from February 1843, archive references to the
grannastevna become regular and frequent.
Until the grannastevna was regulated by law, every decision
had to be unanimous. The story of the Skálavík geese is a
striking illustration of this. Geese are a notorious source of
discord in Faroese villages. The 1848 Skálavík grannastevna
resolved that geese should not be kept in the village; but two
inhabitants who already had geese declared that they intended
to keep them until a legal judgement ordered them to give the
geese up. The 1849 grannastevna found that four households
were keeping geese. Two were willing to give up goose-keeping
if all the others did; but the original two evidently remained
obstinate, for the 1853 grannastevna found it necessary to
adopt regulations for the keeping of geese.21
The first breach in this unanimity rule came in the Jagtlov
of 9 February 1854, though in fact neither does this law
mention the grannastevna by name. Several villages had be-
come aware of the need to conserve the breeding-stocks of sea-
birds on their bird-cliffs. In Sandoy syssel alone, by that year,
Sandur and Skálavík had fixed limits to the number of puffins
to be netted annually, Dalur had forbidden dráttur of puffins,