Egil’s Saga (39 page)

(1) The general movement is trochaic in feeling, with three beats in a line, thus: -
⌣
-
⌣
-
⌣
; but there is no definite rule as to the number of syllables in each line, and (as in English) there is a kind of counterpoint or cross-rhythm caused by the strong syllables coming sometimes off the beat; and it is on this cross-rhythm that the music of the verse largely depends.

(2) The lines in each couplet are connected by
Alliteration
: i.e. two stressed syllables in the first line must begin with the same consonant as the first stressed syllable in the second line (or with vowels—but
different
vowels—if it begins with a vowel); thus:

þel høggr Stórt fyr Stále
Stafnkvígs, etc.

(3)
Within
each line is a system of internal
Rhyme
or
Consonance
, the precise rules of which vary. Thus:

þ
EL
høggr stórt fyr st
ÁLE
.

st
AFN
kvígs á veg j
AFN
an.

sverfr
EIR
arvanr þ
EIR
e.

GEST
els ǫlpt meþ g
UST
om, etc.

II. Secondly, as to content. Skaldic poetry (this is not true in quite the same way, or to the same extent, of the more ancient poetry of the
Elder Edda
, e.g. the
Helgi Lays
, the
Völospá
, the old mystical and didactic poems such as
Hávamál
,
Grimnismál
, the Volsung cycle, etc.) presents a violent contrast to classic Icelandic prose. The pròse is simple, concentrated, direct, and clear: the poetry is complex, concentrated, indirect, and obscure. The one quality they share is the master-quality of concentration; economy of words, intolerance of the unessential.

Now the grand medium or vehicle of skaldic poetry is
Metaphor
. As Homer turned to simile for his great effects so (but far more constantly; indeed in line after line) the skald turned to metaphor. Always hesitate, in poetry, to call a king a ‘king’ (konungr): call him rather ‘Flinger of gold’, or ‘All-wielder’ or ‘God of the byrny’. And if you call him ‘Flinger of gold do not too readily be content with the plain word ‘gold’. Gold is a thing of splendour: it is
fire
: fire that bums even in the depths of the sea: it is the treasure of the dwarf Andvari coveted by the Gods, cursed with a curse: the treasure that the worm Fafnir slept on to guard it, till Sigurd the Volsung slew him. So (e.g.)—‘Flinger of the
billow-fire
’, rather than of plain ‘gold’.

These metaphors are technically called ‘kennings’, and Snorri Sturlason in his
Prose Edda
gives elaborate lists of them based on the practice of the skalds. Court poetry had by his time (the thirteenth century) become ‘conceited’ and lifeless, and its demise was hastened no doubt by the freezing effect of such a system as this when once the inspiration of high poetry flagged and weakened. But it is vital to realize that, so long as inspiration held, the ‘kenning’ and the strict formalities of skaldic verse were not fetters or hobbles, but living organs of the Spirit.

In this particular stave of Egil’s there are five kennings: (1)
stafnkvígr
(ship); (2)
èla meitill
(the chisel of the tempest); (3)
jötunn vandar
(the wind); (4)
svalbúinn selju gandr
(the wind); (5)
Gestils alpt
(ship). For the rest, for
svalr
(cold) cf. Swaledale.
Gestill
is the name of some sea-king.
Gandr
is a strange word, of uncertain derivation. Primarily it means a ‘stick’, and may have attained its ordinary sense of ‘monster’ or ‘fiend’ (
a
) from the riding of sorcerers on ‘broomsticks’, or (
b
) from the fact that sorcery deals with inanimate objects such as sticks and makes them ride. Cf. the terrible vision of the
gandreið
(which Dasent renders ‘the Wolf’s ride’) described in Nj. 124.

The power of this highly artificial verse-form, as a vehicle not of
frigid conceits but of poetry, will be apparent to anyone who cares to spend twenty minutes in informing himself of the meaning of this stave and getting it by heart (I mean, of course, in the Icel.).
^*
Its grandeur, as a picture of the wind at sea, has not often been surpassed: cf. the plunging effect of the last line; the violent word
gandr
(a fiend or ride-by-night) which, owing to the suspension of its appearance for two lines after the governing words
svalbúenn seljo
, comes like the buffet of the wind itself, followed by the galloping anapæstic rhythm of
stále ok brande
. (For want of a g-word here, I have been reduced to unalliterative paraphrase.)

V. T
HE
S
CORN-POLE
(níðstöng): see
ch.
LVII
.

Níð
is, technically, a scurrilous or obscene contumely, a libel, a shaming; in law, punishable by outlawry. There were two kinds of
níð
or ‘scorn’: the ‘tongue-scorn’ (tunguníð) by word of mouth; and the ‘tree-scorn’ (trènið), by carving a person’s likeness (query, in an obscene position) on a ‘scorn-pole’, with or without the additions, as here, of a horse’s head and baneful runes.

For ‘tongue-scorns’ cf. (1) the mocking songs of Sigmund (dung-beards—beardless carle, etc.) against Njal and his sons, Nj. 44; (2) the story in Hkr. (O.T. 36) of the decision of the Icelanders that there should be made a scurvy rhyme on the Dane-King ‘for every nose in the land’ (i.e. for every man, woman, or child); one of these is quoted, based on a jest whose charms age, it seems, could not wither—the picture of the objects of the
nið
(King Harald Gormson and his bailiff) enacting their parts as stallion and mare under the public eye in the open countryside.

For ‘tree-scorns’ cf. (1) the insult laid on Slaying Skuta at the Althing, circ. 980, “that they should have Skuta’s booth-tofts for a privy that summer, and withal he bade Thorgeir raise up there a beam (áss), and carve a man’s head on the end of it’ (
Reykdæla
, 25); (2) the close parallel to the present scene in the
Waterdale Saga
, where Jokull carved a man’s head on the end of the post (sula) “and scored runes thereon with all that formular that was aforesaid. And now slew Jokull a mare, and opened her near the breastbone, and put her on to the post and let turn her homeward toward Burg” (
Vatnsdæla
, 34).

Professor Magnus Olsen has shown that a correct runic transcription of Egil’s ‘formular’ carved on the
níðstöng
will give exact numbers of runes, repeated in such a way that they must necessarily have a magic meaning.

Possibly this use of dead horses originated from the desire to convey opprobrious suggestions of the kind referred to above. But, apart from this, the theory underlying Egil’s procedure was no doubt that the ugly and ghastly spectacle of the horse’s skull would frighten the
land-spirits into obeying the injunctions contained in the runes. Cf. Landn. where it is said that it was the beginning of the heathen law that men should remove (or cover up?) the dragon-heads on their ships when they came in sight of land, “and not sail to land with gaping heads or yawning snouts, so that the land-spirits should be frightened with it”.

The
locus classicus
for land-spirits (who, it is to be noted, are properly of the gentle sex, in spite of instances below to the contrary) is O.T. 37: King Harald Gormson “bade a wizard shape for a skin-changing journey to Iceland…. So he fared in the likeness of a whale. And whenas he came to the land he went west round about the north country; and he saw all the fells and hills full of land-spirits both great and small. But when he came off Weaponfirth he went into the firth, and would go up aland; but lo, there came down from the dale a mighty drake, followed of many worms and paddocks and adders, and blew venom at him. So he gat him gone, and went west along the land till he came to Eyjafirth. Then he fared up into the firth. But there came against him a fowl so great that his wings lay on the fells on either side, and many other fowl were with him, both great and small. So he fared away thence, and west along the land, and so south to Broadfirth, and there stood in up the firth. But there met him a great bull that waded out to sea and fell a-bellowing awfully, and many land-spirits followed him. Thenceaway he gat him, and south about Reekness, and would take land on the Vikars-Skeid. But there came against him a mountain giant with an iron staff in his hand, who bore his head higher than the fells, and with him were many other giants. So thenceaway fared the wizard east endlong of the south country”.

The idea of
níð
is comparable with the legal idea of
ὕβρις
. Cf. one of Demosthenes’s prosecutions where the offence charged was
ὕßρις
of an aggravated kind, the defendant having stamped on his prostrate enemies and flapped with his arms and crowed like a cock.

VI. E
ARL
H
AKON THE
G
REAT:
see
ch.
LXXVIII
.

One of the greatest figures of his century in the North; son of Earl Sigurd of Hladir, of the great house of the Earls of Halogaland who claimed divine descent from Saeming, son of Odin. The sons of Gunnhild burned Earl Sigurd in his house in 962, two winters after the fall of King Hakon Athelstane’s-fosterling, upon which Hakon was taken for earl and captain by the Thrandheimers. For three years he held Thrandheim against Gunnhild’s sons, fighting many battles with them: then made peace, sharing Thrandheim with his enemies, “and now befell great love betwixt Earl Hakon and Gunnhild, though now and again they baited each other with guile”. War broke out again, and Hakon at length fled to Denmark where he had good welcome from King Harald Gormson. From Denmark he stirred up rebellion against
Gunnhild’s sons in Thrandheim. Gold-Harald, brother’s son to King Harald Gormson, was minded at this time to claim a share of kingdom from the King his uncle: Hakon was in the confidence of both sides, and used the situation with Machiavellian skill to serve his own turn. He counselled the Dane-King to invite his fosterson, King Harald Greycloak, to visit Denmark, then betray him and satisfy Gold-Harald by giving him kingdom in Norway. King Harald Greycloak, after some misgivings, came with but three ships to the Neck in the Limfirth to meet the Dane-King his fosterfather. Here he was fallen upon by Gold-Harald with nine ships and slain with Arinbiorn and nearly all his men. But Earl Hakon in the meantime disclosed to the Dane-King a former saying of Gold-Harald’s that he would slay the King his uncle, might but time and place serve, and so wrought upon the King that he gave Hakon leave to slay Gold-Harald and win Norway for the Dane-King. This agreed, Hakon fell upon Gold-Harald, defeated, captured and hanged him; after which King Harald Gormson sailed north and laid Norway under him, giving Hakon (as his earl) Rogaland and Hordaland, Sogn, the Firths, Southmere, Northmere, and Raumsdale. All pretence of vassalage came to an end when, after a great defence of the Danework against Kaiser Otto II, the Dane-King was forced to make peace with the Kaiser and took christening, and then “let christen Earl Hakon will he nill he”. The King gave him priests and other learned men, and bade him christen Norway. But Hakon, when he saw his time, “cast up aland all those learned men”, made offering to the Gods, and sailed home to Norway, where he ruled henceforth for twenty years (975–995), in everything but name a king. He restored the temples of the Gods, that were neglected during the time of civil war and famine under Gunnhild’s sons, and in later years (date uncertain, but after 986) achieved his “crowning mercy”, the victory over the Jomsburg vikings at Hiorungwick. On that occasion he is reputed to have offered up one of his sons to secure victory.

“Whiles Earl Hakon ruled in Norway was the year’s increase good in the land. And good peace there was betwixt man and man among the bonders.” But he made many enemies in his last years by his ‘mannerless’ dealing with women, which pleasant vice was made the instrument of his undoing; for Olaf Tryggvison landed in Norway at the happy moment when the bonders of Thrandheim were in open revolt against the Earl for an outrage of his upon the wife of one of them. On this tide of hatred against his great opposite, the young King rode into power, and the Earl ended his days murdered sleeping by a traitor’s knife, in a pig-stye where he had been hidden for safety from King Olaf’s men by Thora of Rimul, “a wealthy lady, and one of the Earl’s best beloved”.

Snorri says of Earl Hakon that “for many things was he worthy to be lord; first, for the great stock he was come of, and then also for the wisdom and insight wherewith he dealt with his dominion; for his
high heart in battle and his good hap withal, for the winning of victory and slaying of his foemen…. Most bountiful also was Earl Hakon. But most evil hap had such a lord in his death-day. And this brought it most about, that so it was that the day was come, when foredoomed was blood-offering and the men of blood-offerings, and the holy faith came in their stead, and the true worship” (O.T. 56).

For history, indeed, he stands mantled with the grandeur of sunset and of night; in his tragedy is gathered up the death of the old pagan North, the passage into darkness of the old Gods and the ancient way. It is characteristic of the historical génius of the Icelandic mind that Snorri’s story of the Earl’s life (Har. Gr. and O.T.) leaves us, if we follow it fairly, in no mood to take sides. It leaves us in a mood, rather, to look and reflect and pity; and to be aware perhaps of a divine Watcher at our elbow (grey-eyed Pallas, I suppose), to Whom these things are not so clear as they seemed to the people who “set up a whooping and stoned the heads [of Earl Hakon and the thrall who murdered him], crying out that there they fared meetly together, rascal by rascal”. It is beside the great figure of the Earl that the virtues and heroics of the darling young herald of the new day who strode into power over his head, Olaf Tryggvison, can most soberly be measured: the old against the new.