SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Land Tenure in a Faroese Village 27
produce of the outfield. If, as has happened several
times in the past, part of the outfield is brought into
cultivation, it is shared by the kongsbondur and
Malsbondur in proportion to their land holdings.
As will be later seen, Nolsoy does have certain plots
on the Stongin peninsula staked out as allotments (traoir,
sg. troo), which carry with them no outfield rights.
These are the outcome of a law passed in the nineteenth
century in the interests of landless fishermen and will be
considered later. First must be considered what is
implied by ownership in the markatal, or mark scale, and
the rights and duties it involves.P
Rights and duties in a mark of N olsoy land
A mark of land leased or owned on Nolsoy carries with it
absolute ownership of a portion of infield, as already
mentioned, and participation in a joint outfield enterprise
for the keeping of sheep and cattle, cutting peat, and
catching sea-fowl. Also involved, though today of
hardly more than historical importance, are rights of
collecting seaweed and driftwood from the foreshore. An
owner or tenant has a voice in the various administrative
meetings and a vote proportional to his land holding; and
his outfield duties, too, are in proportion to his holding in
marks and gylden.
The chief perquisite of outfield participation is the wool
and mutton of the common flocks. N6lsoy as a whole
carries some 860 sheep, each producing about a kilo of
wool yearly. At the annual round-up in October the
animals not required as winter stock are slaughtered for
conversion into the prized wind-dried mutton called
skerpikjot. The wool is taken at a round-up each spring.
With regard to fowling rights, there is one exceptionally
.. The subject as it applies generally in the Faroe Islands is dealt with
comprehensively in Poul Petersen, op. cit. Also valuable are J. A. Lunddahl,
Nogle bemarkninger om de [areske landboforhold (1851); T'illceg til Forslag og
Betankmnger afgione afden jareske Landbokommission . . . (r9II); M.V. Liitzen,
Landbruget paa Fareerne (1924); Dansk-Fseresk Sarnfund, op. cit., II r84-96.