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Hawkers, beggars, assassins and tramps : Fringe characters in the Íslendinga sögur

Hawkers, beggars, assassins and tramps : Fringe characters in the Íslendinga sögur

By Jamie Cochrane

Sagas and Society, No.6 (2004)

Baldr - from the 18th century Icelandic manuscript SÁM 66 in the care of the Árni Magnússon Institute in Iceland

Abstract: A society is defined not only by the people at its centre, the wealthy and influential and the masses, but also by those people who are on its fringes, neither fully included in that society nor beyond its boundaries. This paper will look at the figure of the göngumaðr in the Íslendinga sögur. A great many sagas utilise one or more such characters to advance their plots. Sometimes salesmen, beggars or even outlaws, they rarely have significant family bonds or support. While they might have some financial wealth, they are invariably without influence or social standing and are almost never presented in a positive light. However their very marginality allows them to move between different social groups; a fact which they attempt to use to their advantage.

The paper will identify a number of different types of vagrants portrayed in the sagas and their varying roles within saga plots. It will consider the extent to which the social breakdown endemic in saga narrative can be blamed on such characters. Beyond this, the paper will begin to consider whether these characters might have represented genuine social concern regarding such figures among the thirteenth century Icelandic readership or whether they were merely convenient plot devices.

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Saga society is one which is made up of links, of social bonds, between individuals and groups. Slaves are tied by a bond of ownership to farmers. Workers are also tied to farmers by year-long terms of service. Farmers in turn declare themselves in þing with a goði. Groups are also linked by kinship bonds, or bonds created by marriage. Although these bonds can occasionally be changed or adjusted, people did not oscillate between social groups. What then of saga characters who have no social bonds – no support structure but also no loyalties or responsibilities? In this paper I’m going to look at some examples of the character of the vagrant in the Íslendinga sögur; and, in particular, at how such characters seek to use their position on the fringes of saga society and their lack of social bonds to their advantage.

It may be useful to begin with a few definitions. “Vagrants” are characters with no fixed abode who move more or less continually about the countryside. They are always portrayed in a negative light in the sagas. They are scurrilous, mercenary, treacherous and manipulative and almost never have social or kinship links of significance. Those vagrants whose names are given in the sagas have only forenames, perhaps with a nickname, but no patronymic. There are a number of nouns that a saga author might use for a vagrant. He might be a gongumaðr or gongukona or gongusveinn, a reikanarmaðr, húsgangsmaðr, einhleypismaðr or a stafkarl, to list but a few. While these words clearly have slightly different connotations, they are used relatively freely by saga authors and occasionally interchanged. The majority of these characters seem to be merely beggars, however some do have some small wares for sale. This makes them similar to the character of the hawker or peddler, the mangari or mangsmaðr, a character portrayed in a similarly negative light in the sagas.

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Click here to read this article from the Univerity of Tübingen

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