4 - Felicity Conditions and Conversion Confrontations

Summary

Possibly the most famous speech act in all of Icelandic literature is the law speaker Þorgeirr Þorkelsson's proclamation that Iceland will convert from the heathen religion of its ancestors to the new religion of Christianity. After spending a mysterious day and night lying under a cloak, Þorgeirr emerges to proclaim that Christianity will be the new religion of the land. In Ari Þorgilsson's Íslendingabók, the earliest account of the Icelandic conversion, Þorgeirr says:

En nú þykkir mér þat ráð […] at vér látim ok eigi þá ráða, es mest vilja í gegn gangask, ok miðlum svá mál á miðli þeira, at hvárirtveggju hafi nakkvat síns máls, ok hëfum allir ein lëg ok einn sið. Þat mon verða satt, es vér slítum í sundr lëgin, at vér monum slíta ok friðinn.

(And now it seems advisable to me […] that we do not let those who most wish to oppose one another succeed, and that we mediate between them, so that each side should have something, and let us all have the same law and the same religion. It will turn out to be true that if we tear asunder the law, we also tear asunder the peace.)

What may be most interesting about this speech is that it is not, in fact, the speech act that converts Iceland to Christianity. Despite any assumptions about what this remarkable speech means or implies, no conversion has yet taken place, nor is it certain at this moment that there ever will be a conversion. Ari is quite clear on the matter, for immediately following Þorgeirr's speech, the narrative continues (emphasis added):

En hann lauk svá máli sínu, at hvárirtveggju játtu því, at allir skyldi ein lëg hafa, þau sem hann réði upp at segja. Þá vas þat mælt í lëgum, at allir men skyldi kristnir vesa ok skírn taka.

(And he concluded his speech in such a way that both sides agreed that everyone should have one law and that they would do whatever he advised. Then it was spoken into law that all men should become Christian and be baptized.)

Here, only after Þorgeirr's famous speech, does Ari give an account of the speech act that converted Iceland to Christianity, but while these brief lines describe the speech act, they do not present the speech itself in direct discourse.