Re: Re: (Ancient cults and) odal

From: Henrix <henrix_at_...>
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 17:51:12 +0100

Bryan:
>About Odal:

<<< iIlluminating bits cut out >>>
>So, in english Odal does have connotations of being free from rent or
>service, but it also has meanings of not being controlled by family
>obligations, and not freely available to sell or assign by any one
>member of the family.

It is (a special form* of) freehold tenure, that is land owned fully by the peasant, and inherited by his descendents.

(My english dictionary does not even list it as obsolete, but that may be an oversight ;-)

Part of Jonas distress may arise from the fact that in swedish usage the independendence of odal has been stressed. In Norway, I have been told, the term is still used for land owned by a family, and which cannot be sold without consensus.

>So, after all this, I forget exactly how the term was used in HW?

In the sense of land owned by the whole clan, distributed to those members who can use it. That is not a freehold, as the land can (at least in theory) be taken away from the family currently using it, and it is not (except in practice) inheritable.
(I think this is how it is used in HW, but I have not yet gotten TR.)

There must be some more adequate term for clan-owned land, if not in English, then in Gaelic.

I doubt there is a Norse term for it as clans do not seem to have been that important.

• Special in the sense that it does not arise from a grant, but from long usage of the land. So the odal man need not have any documentation showing it was a freehold, and no nobleman had any right to it.

---
Henrix