Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1999, Page 144

148
ON THE OLDEST TERRITORIAL DIVISION OF THE FAEROEISLANDS
Fig 5. Looking eastwards over the Valley of Koppurin. In the foreground a remarkable boulder with two large top-
stones weighing several hundred kilos. It could not be decided ifthe phenomenon is natural or man-made.
Mynd 5. Yvirlitsmynd tikin í ein eystan. í forgrundini ein stórur klettur við tveimum stórum steinum liggjandi
omaná. Koppurin vinstrumegin. Skeiðsá rennur tvørurum í bakgrundini, har Somfellisvegurin eisini hómast.
After a series of violent episodes, and af-
ter f>rand is dead, Leif Ossurson takes con-
trol over the islands (Chp. 58). He sails to
Norway and gets the islands in fief from
Magnus I, the Good. The dramatic saga
ends about 1030-40. Brøgger (1937) sug-
gests that originally, shortly after the land-
nám, three chiefdoms: Suðuroy and Norðo-
yar, as well as the central islands, were sep-
arate chiefdoms. This would give a very
unequal division, and the arguments for
this proposal are not strong.
In a passage in the Saga of the Faeroese
(Chp. 45) about tax-collection, Norðoyar is
mentioned as a separate area equal to
Streymoy and Eysturoy, where the taxes
were collected by different men. This
shows that the six small northern islands
are already perceived as a unit. Thus,
Brøgger’s proposal, mentioned above, is
unlikely to hold for the central area.
In conclusion, it can be stated that the
Faeroe Islands in this period, and perhaps
also before, were divided into two chief-
doms, and only for a short interval into
three.
The Markatal as an Indication
of an Old Territorial Division
The Faeroese measure of land value, the