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THE IMPORTANCE OF LANDSCAPE as a narrative device in die sagas has been a largely neglected area of research, and little detailed analysis of it has been attempted in the context of traditional saga scholarship. However, recent work by scholars such as Ian Wyatt has focussed on the role of topographic references that function as elements within the "narrative grammar" of the Ìslendingasògur, in which features of the saga landscape act as literary devices employed by the saga author to direct the action (273). With such research in mind, this paper will examine the contrasting roles of the narrative landscape in the two oudaw biographies Grettis saga and Gisla saga. The texts represent a particularly interesting case study, for outiaws by definition are forced to move beyond the known world, existing on the peripheries of the wilderness outside the human communities. Their special relationship to the landscape allows for the construction of a significant test case that examines how the sagas describe the men in their surroundings, both in the social world and beyond. By focussing on the way in which both protagonists interact with their physical surroundings, Wyatt's hypothesis will be extended in order to demonstrate that descriptions of geography within such texts not only shape the plot, but also contribute towards the complexity of the narrative layers and the characterisation of the saga protagonists. Consequentiy, the following analysis will begin with a general discussion of the legal and social implications of oudawry in medieval Icelandic society as mediated through the world of the sagas and law codes, before focussing more closely on the two oudaw biographies and the function of the narrative landscape in both texts.
THE LEGAL AND SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF OUTLAWRY
As the severest punishment that might be imposed during Iceland's free state period, oudawry effectively placed an individual outside die bounds of society. This is reflected in a description of outlawry found in the Icelandic law code Grágds, which states, "harm skal svá víða vargr heita, sem víðast er veröld byggð, ok vera hvarvetna rækr ok rekinn um alian heim" (Finsen 406) [he shall be known as a wolf, as widely as the world is inhabited, and be rejected everywhere and be driven away throughout all the world]. Similar sentiments...