SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Land Tenure in a Faroese Village
In 1967 an attempt was made to rationalise infield
holdings by a consolidation of the small pieces, a process
known in the islands as utskifting. It has obvious
advantages, but some of the N6lsoyings are dissatisfied
with the settlement that has been tentatively made.
However, the urgency of the need for utskifting is well
illustrated from Map F, which shows the infield holding
of an owner of 5 gylden of land in Norfiarahelvt.
It is worth mentioning that, although the cutting of
peat has fallen out of use since the war in most of the
Faroese villages, it is still common in N6lsoy. This is
because the Nolsoy turbary is near the cliffs at the
southern end of the island, and the islanders run down
the sacks of peat to their boats by a cable-way. On most
islands the peat had to be brought in by the creel, a tiring
and time-consuming task. Thus the peat-cutting right of
northern owners in the southern common has not fallen
into disuse. 24 Ifin the future it should, the question of the
reciprocity of the summer cattle pasture in the north and
the turbary rights in the south might become the subject
of dispute.
Sheep pasturage on N 6lsoy
The pasturage of sheep on Nolsoy is administered
separately by the owners of the northern and southern
commons. The total number of sheep able to graze on
Nolsoy is about 860. A law of 1698 forbade the individual
ownership of sheep, and only since 1866 has it been again
permitted on certain conditions. 25 A small measure of
individual ownership has been attempted on Nolsoy only
since 1952.
Noroarahelvt owners hold all their flocks in common.
Their half of the outfield is divided into 6 pasture areas
.. I have since learnt that on Nolsoy, too, peat-cutting has now been almost
completely abandoned. See Nanna Hermansson, 'Dagligliv pa Nolsoy',
[ordens Folk 7 (I97I), 42-8 .
.. The relevant acts are all printed in Tillag til Forslag og Betcenkninger,
cited in note I2.