Mord Fiddle

Mord Sighvatsson (c. 900-968),^[1] better known as Mord "Fiddle" (Old Norse: Morðr Gigja) was a wealthy Icelandic farmer and expert on Icelandic law who lived during the late Settlement Period and early Commonwealth Period. According to Njals Saga, he was the son of Sighvat the Red, but Landnámabók asserts that Mord was Sighvat's grandson. Mord was the father of Unn Mordardottir, who for a time was married to Hrútr Herjólfsson.

Gunnhild, Mother of Kings, the mother of Harald II of Norway and his brothers and Queen Mother of Norway, had been Hrútr's patron and lover while he sojourned in that land.^[2] When Hrútr returned home, Gunnhild gave him many presents, but she cursed Hrútr with priapism to ruin his marriage to Unn.^[3] It was Mord who masterminded Unn's divorce from Hrútr by advising her on procedures she could use to name witnesses and announce the divorce while Hrut was away.^[4]

Notes

1. Magnusson xl.
2. Ordower 41–61; Njal's Saga § 3. Laxdæla Saga in particular describes the extent to which she became enamored of Hrut: "Gunnhild, the Queen, loved him so much that she held there was not his equal within the guard, either in talking or in anything else. Even when men were compared, and noblemen therein were pointed to, all men easily saw that Gunnhild thought that at the bottom there must be sheer thoughtlessness, or else envy, if any man was said to be Hrútr 's equal. Laxdæla Saga § 19."
3. Njals Saga §§ 5–8; Fox 289–310. In describing the problem to her father, Unn says "when he comes to me his penis is so large that he can't have any satisfaction from me, and we've both tried every possible way to enjoy each other, but nothing works." Njals Saga § 7. Earlier, more prudish translations such as Sir George W. DaSent's 1861 edition merely reported cryptically that Hrútr and Unn "did not pull together well as man and wife" and that Hrútr "was not master of himself."
4. Byock 14-17.

References

• Ari the Learned. The Book of the Settlement of Iceland (Landnámabók). Ellwood, T., transl. Kendal: T. Wilson, Printer and Publisher, 1898.
• Byock, Jesse L. Viking Age Iceland. Penguin, 2001.
• Fox, Denton. "Njals Saga and the Western Literary Tradition." Comparative Literature, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Autumn, 1963), p. 289–310.
• Magnusson, Magnus, and Hermann Palsson, trans. Njal's Saga. Penguin Classics, 1960.
• Ordower, Henry. "Exploring the Literary Function of Law and Litigation in 'Njal's Saga.'" Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Spring – Summer 1991), pp. 41–61.
• Smiley, Jane, ed. Laxdaela Saga. The Sagas of Icelanders. Penguin, 2001.