Modelos de desarrollo turísticos y su aplicación dentro de una localidad

After examining the way animals seem to have been used after their deaths, it is also important to consider how people in Pre-Christian Nordic Europe took care of them when they were still alive. In this section, another general survey will be made of material from various areas and sources, in order to demonstrate certain common patterns. As has been noted above, pigs formed part of the settlement in Iceland. The sagas nonetheless tell us more about, how people understood and approached these animals. The difficult nature of pigs is mentioned in Valla-Ljóts saga, when a man called Halli goes to get a piglet and his mother warns him: “... at þú værir eigi skapbráðr, því at gríssinn mun vera illr með at fara.”514

Vatnsdæla saga, similarly, states that it is difficult to deal with pigs.515

Regarding earlier times, other information from both literary and archaeological records suggests that pigs in later Iron Age Germanic Europe were often herded. It was easy to fatten the pigs by sending them to forests where they could feed on acorns, beechnuts, or ferns. They could also eat the stubble of the fields.516 The pigs were usually in the care of swineherds, but, as Clutton-Brock mentions, these herdsmen had little control over them because pigs are notoriously difficult to control.517 As noted earlier in Chapter 4.5., both literary and the archaeological evidence suggests that pigs were kept in towns and herded in forests. The approaches varied in accordance with the site, relating to natural conditions. Pigs could be easily kept in towns because they can eat almost everything. Cattle, meanwhile, need pasture. As in Kaupang and Birka (see Chapter 4.5.), it seems clear that there were high numbers of pigs in Viking Age Dublin, where they probably stayed at the town.518 In England they were also common, these being the only animals that could be kept in towns. Indeed, in some places in England, there seems to have been a relative increase of pigs during the Viking Age

512 _{Jennbert 2006, p. 135.} 513 _{Pluskowski 2006b, p. 119.} 514 _{Íslenzk fornrit IX, p. 235.} 515

Íslenzk fornrit VIII, p. 116.

516 _{Van Wijngaarden-Bakker 1987, p. 114.} 517 _{Clutton-Brock 1976, p. 378.}

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while the number of cattle decreased.519 The same seems to have applied in the Viking Age settlement at Åhus II in north-eastern Skåne, where pigs were probably kept inside the settlement rather than being left outside in the pasturage.520 Old Norse literature provides further details about where pigs were kept. Valla-Ljóts saga for example talks of a pig being kept somewhere inside.521 Heimskringla meanwhile mentions on several occasions a

svínabœli (hog sty).522

Other words from the sagas are svínaból523 and svínstí.524 So much for inside dwellings: during the summer, it seems that pigs were probably allowed to roam free like sheep, sometimes even surviving the winter outside.525 It is unlikely that there were any big herds of pigs in Iceland, but on the continent or in Britain, the number of animals was probably higher.526 Nonetheless, there are examples of larger numbers in Iceland in Old Norse literature, as Vatnsdæla saga shows:

Þar var fáment heima, en starf mikit fyrir hǫndum, bæði at sækja á fjall sauði ok svín ok mart annat at gera. Þorkell bauzk til at fara með vǫrkmǫnnum á fjall. Ormr kvazk þat vilja. Þeir fóru síðan, ok sóttisk þeim seint, því at fét var styggt; sótti engi knáligar en Þorkell. Þat þótti torsóttligast, at eiga við svínin.527

Grágás,528

similarly, demonstrates that pigs were allowed outside at that time. The law mentions a fee that has one to pay if he let his pigs feed on someone else‟s land:

Ef maður beitir svínum sínum í land annars manns, og varðar slíkt sem hann beiti öðru fé, enda eru þá óheilög við áverkum þess manns er land á, eða þeirra manna er hann biður til, nema túnsvín sé, það er eigi má róta[K: það er hringur eða knappur eða við sé í rana].529

A similar suggestion of pigs being kept outside appears elsewhere in Grágás where it also becomes apparent that some farmers only kept sows because there was a fee for those who

519 _{One of these places was Coppergate in York in England (Richards 1991, p. 73).} 520 _{Mattsson 2004, p. 88.}

521 _{Íslenzk fornrit IX, p. 235.} 522

Ólafs saga Tryggvasonar in Íslenzk fornrit XXVI, pp. 295, 297; Hálfdanar saga svarta in Íslenzk fornrit XXVI, p. 90. Svínabæli is also used in Flateyjarbók (Sigurður Nordal 1944, vol. I, p. 260).

523 _{Fagrskinna: Íslenzk fornrit XXIX, p. 57.} 524 _{Ágrip: Íslenzk fornrit XXIX, p. 17.} 525

See Chapters 4.5.

526 _{For example, one can examine the will of Alfred of Surrey, which mentions a pig herd of 2000 animals} (Clutton-Brock 1976, p. 378).

527 _{Íslenzk fornrit VIII, p. 116.} 528

The main manuscripts of law book Grágás were probably written between years 1250-1280, although as in the cases of other literary sources, different opinions are held about this (Gunnar Karlsson, Kristján Sveinsson, Mörður Árnason 1992, pp. xii-xiii).

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allowed their sow to breed with someone else‟s boar without the owner knowing of it.530 In comparison with this, it is worth noting the Lombard law, Edictus Rothari, §351 (643 AD) where pigs are said to be outside, the leading boar being called the sonorpair:531

Ipse dicitur sonorpair qui omnis alius verres in grege battit et vincit. Tamen in uno grege, quamvis multitude porcorum fuerit, unus conpoterur sonorpair, nam si minor grex de trigenta capetum fuerit, non repotetur sonorpair, nisi sit ride trigenta capetum fuerint. Et si in damnum ipse sonorpair occisus fuerit, aut simile aut meliorem ipse qui occiderit restituat, et damnum ei conponatur, nam si alii verres aut porci furati fuerint, in ahtogild reddatur.532

On boars. He who steals another man‟s boar shall pay twelve solidi as composition in the case of that boar called the leader of the herd (sonorpair) which has fought and conquered all the other boars in the herd. In any one herd, however many pigs there may be, only one is regarded as the

sonorpair. Moreover, if the herd is smaller than thirty head, there is no sonorpair. If the sonorpair

is killed while doing damage, he who killed it shall return a similar sonorpair or a better one and composition for the damage shall be paid to him. But if other boars or pigs are stolen, they shall be returned eightfold.533

Here, it is noteworthy that the leading boar is seen as being more valuable than the rest of the herd. This information makes even more sense when considered in connection with particular boars named in Landnámabók (see Chapters 5.2. and 6.3.) which were certainly seen as being more important than other pigs, presumably because only a small and select number of male pigs were kept as breeding animals.

This chapter has demonstrated how important the swine seems to have been in humans‟ lives since a very early period, their existence being reflected in various forms, such as rock carvings, and funeral habits. It is obvious that during the periods that have been examined, pigs had more space and freedom and were very different from the animals that we know spending their whole lives locked up in pigsties today. It is also worth bearing in mind that the swine the Nordic people knew was either the wild or the wildish domesticated pig (which was much closer to the wild pig in appearance than its modern counterpart). Bearing the above knowledge about the behaviour of the swine, and their places in the daily lives of the Nordic people in mind, we can move on to another chapter which will show how the pigs seem to have been understood in Old Norse literature.

530 _{“Ef maður leigir berfé sitt til graðfjár annars manns ólofað, kú yxna til griðungs eða meri álægja til hests eða} sú ræða til galtar eða á blæsma til hrúts eða geit til hafurs, og varðar það allt þriggja marka útlegð” (Gunnar Karlsson, Kristján Sveinsson, Mörður Árnason 1992, p. 172).

531 _{On the connection between the sonorpair and sonarblót, see further Chapter 10.2.} 532 _{Sievers 1892, p. 542.}

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