Note 238 — Chapter I · OF THE EARLS.

The word Bóndi (pl. Bœndr), literally “a resident” or “dweller,” has no English equivalent, although the form remains in the words “husband” and “husbandman,” (hus-bondi, house-dweller or house-master). The Bœndr were freeholders by odal tenure, proprietors of the lands which they had inherited by succession from the original “land-takers.” “In the primitive form of Scandinavian society,” says Balfour, in his Odal Rights and Feudal Wrongs, “land was the only wealth, its ownership the sole foundation of power, privilege, or dignity. As no man could win or hold possession without the strong arm to defend it, every landowner was a warrior, every warrior a husbandman. King Sigurd Syr tended his own hay harvest, and Sweyn of Gairsay and Thorkel Fóstri swept the coasts of Britain or Ireland while the crops which they and their rovers had sown grew ready for their reaping.” The use of the ancient term survived in Orkney till 1529, as we learn from the description by Jo. Ben, that in the parish of Rendale the people saluted each other with “Goand da boundæ” (i.e. godan dag bondi!) instead of the “Guid day, gudeman,” of the Scottish vernacular. Among the documents found in the king’s treasury at Edinburgh in 1282, was one entitled “A quit-claiming of the lands of the bondi of Caithness for the slaughter of the Bishop,”—viz. Bishop Adam, who was burned at Halkirk in 1222 by the “bondi,” exasperated by his exactions. Although the word is Icelandic, it has been retained in the translation as a convenient term to designate the class, in preference to such periphrastic renderings as “farmer-lairds,” “peasant proprietors,” or “peasant nobles,” as are usually employed.