BORGAFIORD. 
237 
of trouble in pursuing them and compelling 
them to return into our track; in doing which, 
he displayed a dexterity and fearlessness in riding 
that really astonished me, galloping in the most 
furious manner over the loose fragments of rock. 
To add to his fatigue, it not uncommonly hap¬ 
pened that, when he returned to us after having 
recovered the horses that had gone astray in one 
direction, he found those which he had left quiet 
behind already run off in some different course, 
so that he had a most tiresome journey. The 
country over which we passed, after winding 
round the foot of Akra-fiel # and reaching its 
opposite side, was altogether flat and marshy, 
the Christian name of the father, with the addition of sen or 
son, to it; thus the son of the Tatsroed, Magnus Stephen- 
sen, ought, by this rule, to have been Magnusen , to which 
any Christian name might be subjoined. If it had been Olav 
Magnusen, his son would bear the name of Olavsen, or rather 
Olafsen, as I believe it is generally written. 
* Akra, the name of a parish, means corn field, as the 
Tatsroed observed to me 5 and he considered the application 
of this word to a place in Borgafiord, as a strong argument in 
favor of the former cultivation of corn in that quarter of the 
island. From their vicinity to Akra, are also derived the 
appellation of the mountain Akra-fiel, and of the promontory 
Akra-ness, and, indeed, we learn from the Landnama and 
Eigil-Sogas that Skalagrim, in the beginning of the tenth 
century, cultivated grain in the southern part of Myrar, and 
in the neighborhood of the river Hvitaa. On the subject of 
