Slips of the Tongue in the Norse Sagas

1Two cases of errors in speech are recorded in the Orkneyinga Saga (Icelandic Sagas, Vol. III, Rolls Series 34). I quote from Sir G. W. Dasent's translation. In the Earl's Saga, it is related that Earl Rögnvald had fallen out with his kinsman Earl Thorfinn, and the two erstwhile friends made bitter warfare on each other. Rögnvald has burnt Thorfinn's house over his head, and Thorfinn escaped unknown. 'No man thought anything else but that Earl Thorfinn had lost his life there', says the Saga. However as his body was not found it is evident that Rögnvald must have been haunted by the repressed dread that his enemy was still alive. The Saga then continues 'Earl Rögnvald sat in Kirkwall and drew thither the stores he needed to have for his winter quarters. He had a great band of men and much good cheer. But a little before Yule, Earl Rögnvald fared with a great following into the little Papey to fetch malt to be brewed for Yule. And at even as they were on the isle they sate long over a roasting fire, and he who made up the fire said that the firewood began to fall short. Then the Earl made a slip of the tongue, and these were the words he spoke 'Then are we full old when these (fires) are burnt out'. But he meant to have spoken that they would then be full warmed, and as soon as ever he found it out he said 'I have not made a slip of the tongue before this, so that I call it to mind. It comes into my mind what King Olaf my foster-father said at Sticklestead when I took him up for a slip of the tongue: If ever it happens that I made a slip of the tongue I might make up my mind that I should then have but a short time unlived. 'Maybe that my Kinsman Thorfinn is still alive'.

Then Thorfinn suddenly appears and sets fire to the house, Rögnvald escapes but is pursued and slain.