SOURCE AND GENRE

Víga-Glúms saga: alternating Jól feasts and departure gifts; ch. 3, höfðu sinn vetur hvorir jólaveislu; ch. 4, menn með gjöfum á brott leystir

OLD NORSE

höfðu sinn vetur hvorir jólaveislu með öðrum … menn með gjöfum á brott leystir

TRANSLATION

The two households hosted a Jól feast for one another in alternating winters … the departing guests were sent away with gifts.

DIRECTLY ATTESTED

In the Vorz/Norway sequence the saga says the brothers and Vigfúss alternated winter Jól feasts. The following chapter presents one feast being held, well provided, ending with people being sent away with gifts.

CONTEXTUAL

The arrival at the feast, seating near Ástríðr, its conclusion and gifts occur in the same literary episode (SagaDB chs. 3–4). The gifts are connected in narrative sequence with this feast, but the clause does not call them jólagjafir.

MY INTERPRETATION

A specific medieval narrative portrays reciprocal hospitality between allied Norwegian households and gifts given at the conclusion of a Jól feast. It is valid contextual gift evidence, not a lexical attestation of jólagjöf.

NOT ESTABLISHED

That gift-giving was compulsory at all Jól gatherings; that the departing objects were explicitly called jólagjafir; pagan sacrificial intent; historical independent verification of the tenth-century episode; independence from JÓL-026 as a separate text.

FIND IT YOURSELF

Actually consulted: Víga-Glúms saga, online normalized Icelandic text, Icelandic Saga Database (SagaDB), chs. 3–4; https://sagadb.org/viga-glums_saga.is. Find höfðu sinn vetur hvorir jólaveislu in ch. 3; Slítur veislu þeirri and menn með gjöfum á brott leystir in ch. 4. SagaDB does not positively identify its underlying critical copytext. Scholarly edition identified, NOT inspected: Jónas Kristjánsson (ed.), “Víga-Glúms saga,” Eyfirðinga sögur, Íslenzk fornrit IX (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1956), chs. 3–4 (bibliographic identity independently located). English: independently rendered from directly inspected digital Icelandic. Checked: 2026-10-13. No critical apparatus/manuscript collation. Source records: SL-027-A–C.

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CHRONOLOGIES

Represented: saga’s Norway in a Hákon góði-period ancestral narrative. Composition: thirteenth-century Icelandic saga. Material witnesses: notably AM 132 fol., mid-fourteenth century, plus fragments; no witness images examined.

VARIANTS AND DEPENDENCIES

Directly checked SagaDB normalized Icelandic chs. 3 and 4, including the alternate-winter clause, completed feast and departure. Neither Jónas Kristjánsson’s 1956 critical apparatus nor Turville-Petre 1940/1960 nor surviving manuscript readings individually examined. JÓL-026 and -027 remain distinct passage cards from one work.