Egil’s Saga (43 page)
Authors: E. R. Eddison
CHAPTER XXV
1
L
EARNED IN WIZARDRY
(fjölkunnigr). ‘Full knowing’; the word used
passim
of those reputed to know all there is to be known, both what they ought and what they ought not to know, i.e. art magic.
2
S
IT-BY-THE-FIRE
(kolbítr). Lit. ‘a coal-biter’. An idle lout that sits all day in the kitchen; but sometimes turns into a hero in later life.
3
G
ARTH
(garðr). (1) The primary meaning is a ‘yard’, an enclosed space; generally when used alone
garðr
means a ‘hay-garth
or
stackyard’; (2) a court and premises; (3) esp. in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, a ‘house
or
building’ in a town or village (cf. mod: use of
gaard
in Norse); (4) a very common use in Icel., a ‘fence’:
túngarðr
, the ‘fence
or
wall round the home-mead’.
5
R
OUND-SHIP
(knörr). A big ocean-going ship, used for warfare over the high seas, where long-ships could not go; also used as cheaping-ships (Hkr.
IV
, 427–8).
6
S
OLUNDS
(Solundir). Mod. Indre and Ytre Sulen, at the mouth of the Sogn Firth.
CHAPTER XXVI
1
D
UKE
G
UTTHORM
(Gutthormr). Pronounced ‘Gutt-horm’. For more of him see Hkr., Hfdn. 5; also Har. Hfr. 1, 2, 4, 18, 21, 28, 29.
2
T
UNSBERG
(Túnsberg). Mod. Tönsberg, an ancient cheaping-stead in Westfold.
CHAPTER XXVII
1
G
ANGWAY HEAD
(bryggjusporðr). I.e. where the gangway touched the land or the jetty.
2
B
YRNY-TROLL
(bryntröll). Probably a double-edged axe (cf. F.J., note
ad loc):
a fanciful name, like the Fr. ‘miséricorde’ and Engl. ‘morning-star’ or ‘holy water sprinkler’.
3
S
TAVE
. Whether or not this is in fact Skallagrim’s composition, it is a masterpiece of condensation. ‘Hersir’—Kveldulf. ‘Yngling’s bairns’—Gutthorm was of royal descent both by his father’s and mother’s side.
4
R
EEKNESS
(Reykjanes). The extreme S.W. peninsula of Iceland, forming the southern horn of the great bay of Faxa Flow. Looking N. from Reykjavík in ordinary weather you can see in the clear Icelandic air the two-eared white dome of the Snæfells Jökull, the culminating point of the northern horn of the bay, eighty miles away across the sea. Reekness still ‘reeks’ with the smoke of hot springs, and it is a rough point to round if the weather is at all stormy.
5
T
HAT NESS THAT WAS THERE
. I.e. Digraness; mod. Borgarnes.
CHAPTER XXVIII
1
W
IDE WOODS
. There are none now. But there is no reason to doubt that this treelessness is of comparatively tecent date. Cf. the references in the sagas to charcoal-burning which implies woods, e.g. by Vigfus at Drapalithe (Eb. 26); and the constant references to ‘woods’ where the context clearly requires substantial trees. Snorri the Priest and Arnkel would not have quarrelled about Crowness “and the wood thereon, which is the best possession in the countryside” (
ibid.
31) if it had been, as it now is, mere scrub not reaching to your heel as you ride through it; and there is detailed reference to the cutting, piling, seasoning, and loading of timber in that wood (
ibid.
35). Either the farm-stock has eaten down the young growths so that the woods have perished, or (as is not unlikely) there has been a definite climatic change since the saga time. The rowan-trees in the parson’s garden at þingvellir, some 15 ft. high, are to-day quite a feature in the countryside.
2
A
GREAT FIRTH
. I.e. Burgfirth.
3
H
VANNEYRI
. On the S.E. shore over against Burg, with a panorama of firth and fell, including, close at hand, the grand mountain wall of Skarðsheiði. Here is to-day the agricultural college of Iceland, with fine buildings and a big model farm.
4
A
NDAKIL
.
Önd
, ‘a duck’ (gen. pl.
anda
), and
kill
, ‘a creek
or
inlet’.
5
S
KALLAGRIM GAVE LAND
, etc. This, the usual procedure, determined the fundamental character of the Icelandic commonwealth: a republic of aristocrats surrounded by their’ thing-men’, towards whom they stood in the double relation of chief and temple-priest. Cf. the account of Thorolf Mostbeard’s settlement of the Thorsness country, in the opening chapters of Eb., and remarks in Int. p. xx–xxi on ‘Priest’.
6
O
NUND
S
JONI
. A shipmate of Egil’s in later years. For the dealings of him and his son Steinar with Egil’s son Thorstein, see chs.
LXXX
–
LXXXIV
.
7
W
HITEWATER
. The Hvítá is extraordinarily white; but the statement that Skallagrim and his men had never seen glacier-water is very strange: possibly a gloss by a copyist who thought the land of Jotunheim and the Jostedalsbrae possessed no glacier streams. Or it may be true. For while the saga is curiously vague about the locality of Kveldulf’s family seat, merely placing it in the Firdafylke, there are certain indications (including this passage) that it was in the Dalsfjord, a neighbourhood which is in fact without glacier rivers.
CHAPTER XXIX
1
T
HORD THE
Y
ELLER
. A great lord in the western dales, who dwelt at Hvamm. For his by-name ‘Gellir’, cf. Hen-Th. 13: “He was come from Broadfirth out of the west country who alone was able to answer Odd-a-Tongue, and whose voice and speech were as the roaring of a bull”. He is a frequent figure in the sagas, and was responsible for the constitutional reforms which in 964–5 led to the dividing of the land into Quarters and the setting up of Quarter-Courts at the Althing.
CHAPTER XXX
1
W
HEN OTHER MEN WENT TO SLEEP
. See
here
and
note 3
to
ch.
XL
.
2
S
TAVE
. ‘Wind’s weeds’—
bellows.
‘Viddi’s brother’—the
wind
(but it is not known who Viddi is). ‘Gold of Beam-enjoyer’, gold of the fire—i.e. the glowing
metal.
‘Stirring cots that swallow the storm-blast’—
bellows.
CHAPTER XXXI
1
S
PRINKLED WITH WATER
. The old pagan custom.
2
S
TAVE
. Not Egil’s, but a later fabrication. ‘Glittering ling-thong’
—the snake
or
worm
(draco); the worm’s bed (cf. the Volsung story of Fafnir) is
gold. ‘
Light-encircled worm-lands’ is another kenning for
gold.
3
S
TAVE
. ‘Herdsman of the wound-fowl’—
a warrior
(who, by plying his trade, gathers together ravens, etc. to feast on the carrion). Surf-dogs’—
the sea-snail shells
; query, so called from some children’s game on the sea-shore. ‘Sea-steed’—
ship.
‘Beck-partridge’—
duck;
the ‘bed’ of it—its
egg.
This stave, too, is not genuine, but belongs to the twelfth or thirteenth century.
CHAPTER XXXII
1
B
IORN AND
T
HORA
J
EWEL-HAND
. This little idyll (chs.
XXXII–XXXV)
is no adventitious ornament. The importance, in Egil’s career, of Biorn’s wedding with Thora will appear later.
CHAPTER XXXIII
1
E
ARL
S
IGURD
. Son of Eystein Glumra, and brother of Rognvald the Mere-Earl. King Harald Hairfair, when he had cleared out the vikings “West-over-sea”, gave Earl Rognvald the Orkneys and Shetland. “But Rognvald straightway gave both the lands to Sigurd his brother, who abode behind in the West. And the king or ever he fared back east gave the earldom to Sigurd. Then there joined him to Sigurd, Thorstein the Red, son of Olaf the White and Aud the Deeply-wealthy, and they harried in Scotland, and won to them Caithness and Sutherland all down to the Oikel-Bank. Now Earl Sigurd slew Tusk-Melbrigda, a Scottish earl, and bound his head to his crupper; but he smote the thick of his leg against the tooth as it stuck out from the head, and the hurt festered so that he gat his bane therefrom, and he was laid in howe in Oikel-Bank” (Har. Hfr. 22).
2
M
OSEYBURG
. Presumably the Broch of Mousa, for a description and photograph of which see
here
of Dr Brøgger’s
Ancient Emigrants
(Clarendon Press, 1929). These brochs are probably Pictish and date from remote antiquity.
3
A
FIRTH WONDROUS GREAT
. I.e. Faxa Flow.
4
A
FIRTH WAS BEFORE THEM
. I.e. Burgfirth.
5
A
CERTAIN NESS
. The Ness is Digraness (mod. Borgarnes), and the isle Brakarey, and the sound Brak’s Sound, see
ch.
XL
. Biorn seems to have anchored where the little steamer
Suðurland
anchors to-day that plies between Reykjavík and Borgarnes.
CHAPTER XXXVI
1
E
RIC
B
LOODAXE
(Eiríkr Blóðöx). This best loved son of King Harald Hairfair succeeded him, as will be seen later (
ch.
LVII)
, as King of Norway, but after a stormy year or two was forced to flee the land, yielding the throne to his half-brother Hakon. Eric’s mother was a Danish princess, Ragnhild, daughter of the King of Jutland (Har. Hfr. 21). His career after he was turned out of Norway, and the date of his death (and indeed that of his turning out), are not exactly known. This much is certain, that he was a great sea-king in his youth, and also in later life: that he was sometime king in York (this is confirmed from English sources): that he was finally driven out of Northumberland, and fell (probably in 954) in a great battle in an attempt to win back that kingdom: see Hak. 3 and 4, where it is said that there fell in that battle King Eric and five kings with him and two sons of Earl Turf-Einar of the Orkneys. He was “a big man and a fair; strong and most stout of heart; a mighty warrior and victorious, fierce of mind, grim, unkind, and of few words” (Har. Hfr. 46). A great soldier but a poor statesman, he was steered, like Ahab and Macbeth, by the masculine will of his wife. The rich inheritance, painfully created by
his father’s genius during so many years, of an undivided realm of Norway, survived for Eric but a few months, and then fell to pieces in his rude and unskilful hands. See also note, on
Gunnhild
.
2
C
ARAVEL
(karfi). See note on
‘Long-ship’
.
3
M
ANY SUMMERS
. Circ. from 905 to 918 (F. J.).
CHAPTER XXXVII
1
B
IARMALAND
(Bjarmaland). The land of the Perms, round the basin of the White Sea (Hkr.
IV
, 241).
2
G
UNNHILD
. For the full story of Eric’s finding her in Biarmaland, dwelling with two Finnish wizards of hellish powers, under whose tuition she was studying art magic, see Har. Hfr. 34. She is described (
ibid.
46) as “the fairest of women, wise and cunning in witchcraft; glad of speech and guileful of heart, and the grimmest of all folk”. In our saga she is the most implacable of Egil’s enemies; partly, it would seem, on the principle of
odi quem Iœseris
, for her first act is an attempt, on small provocation, to poison him (
ch.
XLIV)
. This great Queen appears in the sagas in a baleful light, an instance of those many glorious women who, being “fam’d for masculine vertue, have bin vitious”. In her widowhood she appears as insatiable as the great Catharine in her taste for personable young men (see Nj. and Ld. for her relations with Hrut and Olaf the Peacock): a taste that is hinted at in our own saga (Thorolf Skallagrimson, Bergonund), but with no suggestion that it was indulged to an inconvenient extreme during Eric’s lifetime. Pride is her great spring of action: she cannot away with the old Norse conception of a king as but
primus inter pares
, and is for ever driving on her lord towards greater show of autocratic power and formality. Thus in her hatred of ‘this great Egil’ is incarnate the theme (fundamental in this saga) of the strife for power between the king and the great houses; and an impartial reader can hardly help feeling throughout the scene in York (chs.
LIX, LX
) that there is a very great deal to be said in principle for the Queen’s point of view.
There are reasons (not, I think, conclusive) for thinking that Gunnhild was not, as the sagas make her, the daughter of Ozur Toti, but a Danish princess, daughter of King Gorm the Old of Denmark. Two of her sons are named Gorm and Gamli (i.e. Old), and there are many instances of Danish support lent to her interests and those of her sons. Still, since Ragnhild, Eric Bloodaxe’s mother, was a Dane, it is not necessary to make Gunnhild a Dane to supply the connexion. Professor Nordal pointed out to me that, even supposing her to have been King Gorm’s daughter and the sagas therefore wrong in point of fact, it is interesting to note that they are still right in their broad historical view of the Queen, expressed by making her a foreigner brought up among Finns with magic powers. For the essential matter is that, whether she came from the cot of her Finnish tutors or from
the highly developed court of Denmark, the Norse ways were strange and jarring to her, with their informal ideas about kings: “Who ever heard tell of such-like doings to a King-man?” Dasent has an admirable note on Gunnhild, Nj. vol. II, pp. 377–96;
