In the Icelandic sagas, many terms are used to indicate boars or pigs, the most common of these being svín (pig), gǫltr (boar), galti (boar), gríss (piglet), sýr (sow), gylta (young sow), and gyltr (young sow). More specific terms, such as villigǫltr (wild boar) are also found, specifically in the fornaldarsögur and riddarasögur. Indeed, there seems to be a clear split between the Family Sagas or Íslendingasögur and Sturlunga saga in which domestic pigs are generally included in a farm context, and the fornaldarsögur, in which boars are almost exclusively monstrous figures, very wild, and very dangerous. In the Íslendingasögur, the terms tǫðugǫltr (boar of the homefield hay) and túngǫltr (homefield-boar) are also used, which have variously been translated as home-fattened boar (McKinnell, ch. 18), hayfield boar (Acker, ch.20), and domestic boar (Quinn, ch. 20) The use of this term, and related ones involving words for homefield and homefield hay, suggests that the pig in these texts with an Icelandic setting is a domestic creature with a close association to the home. Such an association seems also to be found in the Byskupa sögur.
Ausg.: J. McKinnell: The Saga of Killer-Glum, in: The Complete Sagas of Icelanders II, 1997, 267-313; P. Acker: The Saga of the People of Floi, in: The Complete Sagas of Icelanders III, 1997, 271-304; J. Quinn: The Saga of the People of Eyri, in: The Complete Sagas of Icelanders V, 1997, 131-218 [see also bibliography to → E.1.IV.1].
Harriet Jean Evans