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On Arons saga HjOrleifssonar 143
term had gained current acceptance at the time of
writing.
Likewise, his acquaintance with the laws of the
republican period is suspect. He writes that Aron
received a heavier sentence of outlawry than the other
members of the bishop's party - at hann var gerr
sk6garmaor ok 6heilagr ok 6ferjandi ok 6rdOandi altum
bjargrdOum,16 Bjorn M. Olsen points out that in fact all
Tumi's attackers were liable by law to a sentence of full
outlawry for their part in the raid, and that Sturla and
his father would have had no inclination to leniency for
those who had killed their kinsman.!?
The clearest indication of a late date, however, IS
given by the existence of extracts from two poems by
1?ormol'5r prestr Olafsson.P A man of this name is
mentioned in an annal for the year 1338, where he is
described as both presir and skdld. 1 9 Despite Gul'5brandur
Vigfussons arbitrary rejection of the apparent link.>?
there can be little doubt that this man is the author of
these verses, as well as of one in praise of Gunnarr of
Hlioarendi which is found in the Kdlfalcekjarb6k text of
Njdls saga from c. 1350,21 It has been suggested that the
verses may be interpolations in an earlier text, 22 but apart
from the misplacing of two of them, which could well be
a copyist's error, there is no concrete evidence to support
the idea. 1slendinga saga is altogether ignorant of them
but on the other hand they were in the manuscript which
the writer of Resensb6k used.
It seems fairly clear then that some part of the
"Sturl. II 258.
" B. M. Olsen, 'Urn afstOOu fslendinga sogu og Arons sogu', Safn til Siigu
Islands III 267. The phrase oraoandi iillum bjargraoum, as opposed to the
ordOandioil bjargraoof Grdgdshas also been held by Olsen to indicate the author's
ignorance of the older law. In fact, the -umm abbreviation above the end of
each word in AM 426 fol. (the other chief manuscripts are all defective at this
point) has been added in a later hand.
,. Sturl. II 247-8, 252, 256.
"G. Storm, Islandske Annaler indtil I578 (1888), 350.
2. loco cit.
21 See Einar 61. Sveinsson, Brennu-Njtils saga (1954), 190 n., 477.
22 Finnur ] onsson, loco cit.