Egil’s Saga (42 page)

4
G
IVE MY WIFE
(gefa konu mína). Cf. Egil’s taking to wife his brother’s widow,
ch.
LVI
.

5
L
YKE-HELP
(umbúnaðr). Lit. an ‘arranging about’ or ‘putting in order’, sc. in a decent manner of the corpse for burial.

6
T
ILTED
. T
O
‘tilt’ (
tjalda
) is to pitch a tent; primarily, as here and
passim
in our saga, in the sense of rigging the awning of a ship, for Icel. is the language of vikings and seamen.

7
H
AD BECOME FATHER AND SON-IN-LAW
(mægð hafði tekiz með þeim S. ok B.). Lit. ‘kinsman-in-lawship had come about between them’. A.S. has, but English has not, the equivalent of this general term
mágr
, which includes father-, brother-, and son-in-law.

8
B
ASTARD-BORN
(frilluson). Lit.’ sons of a paramour
or
wish-wife’.
Frilla
is connected with
friðr
, ‘peace
or
tranquillity’, and in poetry has the meaning of ‘mistress’ (Lat.
amica);
but in prose with a slightly disdainful connotation, ‘concubine’.

CHAPTER X

1
T
HE FELL
(fjall). I.e. the highlands of Finnmark.
Fjall
(mountain) is generally used of a bigger thing than
fell
(hill).

2
S
CAT
(skattr). The general term for tribute; see our saga and Hkr-
passim.

3
K
YLFINGS
(Kylfingar). Query, from some part of Garthrealm (
Garðaríki =
Russia).

4
C
OD-FISHERIES
(skreið-fiski).
Skreið
= ‘a shoal of fish’, particularly a shoal of
spring cod.
It has also come to mean
‘dried
fish’ (cod, codling, haddock, etc.).

5
A
HUNDRED
(hundrað). Here, as always, the old ‘long’ hundred, 120; still used in Iceland for counting sheep in a flock or a fisherman’s share in a catch.

At this point we stand at the highwater-mark of Thorolf’s fortunes:

“Prosperity doth bewitch men seeming cleere,

But seas doe laugh, shew white, when Rocks are neere”.

CHAPTER XII

1
Harek is a past master in the art of making the better appear the worse, of slanderous innuendo.

2
T
HERE SHOT TERROR INTO THE BREASTS OF THESE BONDER-LADS
(búandkörlum skaut shelk í bringu).
Skelkr
(cf. Engl, ‘skulk’) is etymologically connected with the idea of slavery, and has a contemptuous connotation: ‘funk’.

3
B
IDDEN AND BOUN
(búnir ok boðnir). One of those alliterative formulas not uncommon in Icel.: cf. ‘’twixt fell and foreshore’. Harek plainly overreaches himself here, and a less jealous mind than King Harald’s might have observed it.

CHAPTER XIII

1
S
HIP OF BURDEN
(byrðingr). A merchant-ship as opposed to a war-ship.

2
G
REY-WARES
(grávara). “Calabar skins, skins of the squirrel as distinct from beaver and sable” (Hkr.
IV
, 344).

3
B
EAVER-SKINS
(bjórskinn). Beavers, common enough in Europe, and even in England, at one time, are so far exterminated that the name naturally suggests to-day the American species.

CHAPTER XIV

1
K
VENS
(Kvenir). These dwelt on either side of the Gulf of Bothnia; held by some to have been of Swedish stock, but F. J. points out that the king’s name, Faravið, does not sound Norse.

2
K
IRIALS
(Kirjálar). Kirialaland is mod. Karelia, in east Finland.

3
T
HE
K
EEL
(Kilir). Mod. Kjölen; the massif that forms the watershed between Norway and Sweden. There is a riddle, “Why is it that Norway cannot sail and Sweden cannot swim?” “Because Norway turns the Keel upward, and Russia took the Finns away from Sweden”.

CHAPTER XVI

1
G
IFTS OF REMEMBRANCE
(minningar). ‘Keepsakes.’ Cf. Skarp-hedinn’s words to Gunnar Lambison at Njal’s burning, “Here now is a keepsake (minjagripr) for thee”, as he took out of his purse the jaw-tooth which he had hewn out of Thrain (G.’s uncle), and threw it at G. and struck him in the eye so that it started out and lay on his cheek (Nj. 129).

2
T
HAT THEY SHALL GET THAT THEY CAME TO MARKET FOR
(at þeir komiz þar at keyptu). I.e. they will get the bargain they deserve, and little to their liking.

CHAPTER XVII

1
V
AGAR
(Vágar). In the Lofoten Islands, mod. East and West Vaagö; still a great place for cod-fishing (F.J.).

2
T
HEN CAME
T
HOROLF THERE WITH A HUNDRED MEN
. A plain lie, for Thorolf was in Kirialaland (see
here
). But the King is ready to swallow all their slander now.

CHAPTER XVIII

1
S
IGTRYGG
S
HARP-FARER
.
Snarfari
means lit.’ swift-farer’; ‘sharp’ in the sense of ‘brisk’: cf. our colloquial ‘look sharp’. I have rendered it ‘sharp-farer’ to preserve the assonance of the brothers’ by-names
snarfari—harðfari.

2
W
ESTFOLD
(Vestfold). Harald’s ancestral kingdom, W. of the Oslofirth.

3
T
HE
K
ING’S ERRANDS
(sendiferðir konungs). F.J. says that these brethren were so-called
gestahöfðingjar
, captains of the ‘guests’. As to these ‘guests’ he quotes
Konungsskuggsjá
, which shows that they were housecarles, members of the King’s bodyguard, and so called because they “take guesting at many men’s houses, and not altogether as a matter of friendship”. Their duty was “to hold espial through all the King’s realm and be ware if he have any unfriends in his realm …. And if the King appoint guests to any of his unfriends, and it so betide that they are slain to whom the guests were appointed, then have the guests for their trouble a share of their fee”: in brief, these ‘guests’ were an organized service for committing murder and robbery in the King’s name. Olaf the Holy had 30 guests “and assessed them wages and gave them laws” (O.H. 55).

4
T
HE
K
ING SAW…THAT THAT WAS NO LIE
. Very delicate irony.

5
S
ET TO WED
(veðsetti). The O.E. term for ‘mortgage’, an exact counterpart of the Icel.

CHAPTER XIX

1
S
O AS ONLY THE HILL-TOPS SHOWED OVER THE SEA’S BOURNE
(svá at sjór var í miðjum hlíðum). Lit. ‘so that the sea was in the mid slopes’; with the result, of course, that he was hull-down and probably out of sight altogether to people spying from the shore.

2
E
ASTAWAY
(í Austrveg). All the lands east of Sweden were
Austrvegr:
generally, the eastern shores of the Baltic.

3
T
HE
E
RE-FLEET
(Eyrarfloti). The great gathering of merchant-ships that came together at an appointed time every year at Eyrr (Skanör) in Denmark (F.J.).

4
B
AILIFF
(ármaðr). Lit. ‘year’s-man’. His duty was to get in everything which must be collected for the sustenance of the King and his court when travelling about the country. In time they came to be more and more powerful as their tax-gathering duties grew (F.J.). Their unpopularity as ‘King’s thralls’ with inconvenient powers is well shown by the story of Seal-Thorir and Asbiorn Seal’s-bane (O.H.
122–8); cf. the saying of the great Erling Skialgson: “I bow the neck of a good will to thee, King Olaf; but this shall I deem a troublous matter, to lout before Seal-Thorir, who is thrall-born through all his kin, although he be now your steward, or to bow to other such as are his peers of kindred, although you lay honour on them” (
ibid.
122).

CHAPTER XX

1
His
ONLY CHILD
. This is a slip. Thordis, another child of Yngvar’s, is mentioned at the beginning of
ch.
LVIII
, and also in Landn.

2
B
ALD-HEADED
(sköllóttr). Skallagrímr = ‘Bald Grim’. Egil, too, was early bald (pp. 111, 116), an inconvenience which he shares with other famous men, e.g. Scipio Africanus and Julius Caesar.

CHAPTER XXII

1
B
Y
S
KARNSOUND …
. E
LDA-EID
. Skarnsound is the waterway that connects this firth with the more northerly Beitsjór (mod. Beitstadfjord); Eldueið, the isthmus that parts the Trondhjemsfjord from the Namsen-fjord. King Harald took the way that goes to-day from Fosnaes over Elden to Rödhammer (F.J.).

2
B
ADE GO OUT WOMEN, ETC
. This was the gentlemanly procedure when the terrible expedient of ‘burning in’ was adopted; cf. Njal’s burning (Nj. 128), where Flosi was ready to let the women and children and housecarles, and Njal himself, go out; and even in the bitter wars of the Sturlung age a like mercy was shown, e.g. at the burning of Flugumyri. It was not so, however, when a low fellow like Hen-Thorir was in charge of the business: “Blundketil and his folk awoke not before the house was ablaze over them. Blundketil asked who had lighted that hot fire, and Thorir told who they were. Blundketil asked if aught might get him peace; but Thorir said: ‘There is nought for it but to burn’. And they departed not before every man’s child therein was burnt up” (Hen-Th. 9).

3
S
HIELD-BURG
(skjaldborg). Formed by men of his bodyguard standing about the King with shields interlocking; commonly used by kings in battle, e.g. by King Hakon Athelstane’s-fosterling and Eric’s sons at Fitiar in Stord (
Hákonarmál
, Hak. 32, p. 190); by Earl Eric in the great sea-fight at Svold (O.T. 116); by King Olaf the Holy at Sticklestead (O.H. 218). See also the breaking of King Brian’s shield-burg by Brodir the Viking (Nj. 156). Cf. the Roman
testudo.

4
E
YVIND
S
KALDSPILLER
. Great-grandson on the distaff side of King Harald Hairfair. His
Haloga-Tale (Háleygjatal)
and
Hakon’s-Song (Hákonarmál)
are extant, the one in praise of the family of the Earls of Hladir composed for Earl Hakon the Great, the other in memory of thelast battle, victory and death of King Hakon Athelstane’s-fosterling. His by-name of
Skáldaspillir
doubtless meant that he stole
from the older skalds; like some other nicknames (e.g. Audun Ill-skald—‘Poetaster’), given originally in spite, it stuck without any sense of dishonour. That it was justified is demonstrated by the poems just mentioned, so far at least as form is concerned.

CHAPTER XXIII

1
T
HERE FELL
H
ILDIRID’S SONS
. A perfunctory, but perhaps adequate, dismissal of these schemers.

2
I
NGOLF AND
H
IORLEIF
. Ingolf Arnarson was the first settler (landnámamaðr) in Iceland; both Landn. and Ari’s
Islendingabók
say that he dwelt at Reykjarvík (mod. Reykjavík, now the capital of Iceland). The reason for his journey (see
Earl Atli the Slender
) was more respectable than that of another famous discoverer, Eric the Red, whose discovery of Greenland followed upon manslayings which had made first Norway and then Iceland too hot to hold him. A statue of Ingolf by Einarr Jónsson, as of Cortés staring from his peak in Darien, stands on the little green hill at the foot of the Hverfisgata in Reykjavík, looking north over the ships and the harbour and the waters of Faxa Flow. For Hiorleif’s fate, see note
‘Irish Thrall’
.

3
This is the country of
Njal’s Saga.

4
L
ITHEND
(Hlíðarendi). The seat of Gunnar of Lithend, the hero of the earlier part of
Njal’s Saga.
Baug was Gunnar’s great-grandfather.

5
L
AND-TAKE MEN
(landnámamenn). Hence the title of the
Land-námabók
, the great book of settlements and generations, which has been called the foundation of all exact history, political or social, of the North.

6
W
EATHERLID
(Vetrliði). When King Olaf Tryggvison’s militant missionaries, Thangbrand and Gudleif, were preaching Christianity in Iceland in 999,” they fared to Fleetlithe … There Weatherlid the Skald, and Ari his son, spoke most against the faith, and for that they slew Weatherlid” (Nj. 98).

7
S
PEAKER OF THE
L
AW
(lögsögumaðr). The highest office-bearing person in the Icelandic commonwealth; for his duties and powers see Nj. vol. I, p. lvii, and other references given s.v. in the index to that book.

CHAPTER XXIV

1
S
TAVE
. ‘Thunder-Lord’—Odin. ‘Thing of Odin’s shield-mays’, assembly of the Valkyries—i.e.
battle.
(For general note on the verse-form of these ‘staves’, see
note
.)

2
P
AY BOOT
(bæta). Atonement, weregild. For a general discussion of the ways open to free men under the old law to obtain redress, see Dasent’s Introduction, Nj. vol. I, pp. cxl-cxlii. Friendly atonement by way of ‘paying boot’, when accepted and carried out, had the effect of
complete reconciliation, and in theory at least put an end to the blood-feud. Overbearing men sometimes made it a point of pride to do as they pleased and make atonement to no man; e.g. Slaying Stir, the father-in-law of Snorri the Priest, who “was a masterful man in the countryside, and had a many folk about him; he was held guilty at many men’s hands, for that he wrought many slayings and booted none” (Eb. 18); Thorbiorn the Priest: “It is well known, Howard, that I have slain many men, and though folk called them sackless, yet have I paid weregild for none” (
Howard’s Saga
, ch. 5); and Hrafnkel Frey’s-priest, who “stood much in single combats and paid no man fee, so that none gat of him no boot, whatsoever he might do” (
Hrafnkel’s Saga
,
ch. I
).