SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Saga-Book of the Viking Society
warlike warrior-king lies at Geirstaoir, buried in a gravemound.l'"
Here we are told that Olafr was a great warrior, and also
what there was to show for it - that he formerly
"governed a very large area of V estmari", Snorri Sturluson
obviously assumed that Vesimarr was another name
for Vestfold, incredible though it may appear, for such an
interpretation makes the verse into what amounts to
a nonsense-verse. A district of Norway can under no
circumstances be described as ofsa viO grund - a very
large area - nor is it a gunndjarfr herkonungr - a bold
warrior-king - who loses a sizeable part of his patrimony.
In 1948 I concluded that Vestmarr probably meant "the
lands to the west of the ocean" in general, i.e. the British
Isles. This would make reasonable sense of the verse."
I was then unaware of the fact that a similar conclusion
had previously been reached by two scholars: E. Wadstein
in 1896 and Jan de Vries in 1924. Since then, J6n
J6hannesson dealt admirably with the problem in 1956
and came to the conclusion that Vesimarr was the Western
Ocean - what is now generally known as the North Seaand
the verse then tells us that "in former times Olafr
governed a very large area to the west of the North Sea".
It may therefore be considered very likely that the
Olafr GUlJn