Egil’s Saga (44 page)

3
B
ERGONUND
. A personage of some importance to Egil’s career: see
ch.
LVI
ff.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

1
A
NEEDFUL ERRAND
. Presumably to get leave from Asgerd’s kinsfolk for his wedding with her; see
ch.
XLII
.

2
W
E SHALL NOT MEET
. A
S
usual, this foreboding is fulfilled. Cf. Kveldulf’s foreboding of the fall of the elder Thorolf,
ch.
XIX
; Egil’s in
ch.
LIV
; Bergthora’s saying (Nj. 126): “Now shall ye choose your meat to-night, so that each may have what he likes best; for this evening is the last that I shall set meat before my household”, and many similar passages in the sagas, which well illustrate Keyserling’s profound saying (Int., p. xxvii) that the belief in predestination is always grandiose in effect where its disciples possess proud souls.

3
S
TAVE
. ‘Switch’s care-bed’ (sveigar kör)—
axe
, which chops down the brushwood (switch) and so is its ‘death-bed’. ‘Wound-wolf—
axe
again, from another point of view. ‘Muck-horn’ (arghyrna):
arg
is a term of the foulest opprobrium, see
Lokasenna
and notes thereon,
C.P.B.
vol. I.

CHAPTER XXXIX

1
R
EEKDALE
(Reykjadalr). Mod. Reykholtsdalur. Reykholt was the seat of the great Snorri Sturlason. Riding from Burgfirth past Whitewater-meads you can see to-day, at ten miles’ distance, the ‘reek’ of the hot springs as if the land was burning. At Deildartunga (and I believe at other farmsteads in the neighbourhood) they bake their bread by the heat of the springs. Snorri’s bath is still shown to visitors, a circular well rimmed round with stones. In the river some miles below Reykholt is a ‘water volcano’, a small rock islet in midstream which, from several holes in its surface, continually throws out boiling water into the cold river that surrounds it.

2
B
LUND-
K
ETIL
. Burnt in his house by Hen-Thorir, according to Hen-Th. and Landn.; but Ari in
Íslendingabók
says it was Thorkel that was burnt, the son of Blund-Ketil.

CHAPTER XL

1
B
ALL-PLAYS
(knattleikar). A game of bat and hall, often mentioned in the sagas. Antiquarians have not succeeded in reconstructing its rules with any certainty (see F.J.’s note
ad loc.
). It was played by sides, and with a bat and ball: apparently one player hit the ball with
the bat, and the opponent tried to catch it: if he missed it there seems to have been a general scrimmage for the ball.

The one clear thing about the game is that it was very rough. Cf. Gisl. 8: “Those brothers-in-law, Thorgrim and Gisli, were very often matched against each other, and men could not make up their minds which was the stronger, but most thought Gisli had most strength. They were playing at the ball on the tarn called Sedgetarn. On it there was ever a crowd. It fell one day when there was a great gathering that Gisli bade them share the sides as evenly as they could for a game.

“‘That we will with all our hearts,’ said Thorkel, ‘but we also wish thee not to spare thy strength against Thorgrim, for the story runs that thou sparest him; but as for me I love thee well enough to wish that thou shouldst get all the more honour if thou art the stronger.’

“‘We have not put that yet to the proof,’ says Gisli, ‘may be the time may come for us to try our strength.’

“Now they began the game, and Thorgrim could not hold his own. Gisli threw him and bore away the ball. Again Gisli wished to catch the ball, but Thorgrim runs and holds him and will not let him get near it. Then Gisli turned and threw Thorgrim such a fall on the slippery ice that he could scarce rise. The skin came off his knuckles, and the flesh off his knees, and blood gushed from his nostrils. Thorgrim was very slow in rising.…Gisli caught the ball on the bound, and hurled it between Thorgrim’s shoulders so that he tumbled forwards, and threw his heels up in the air.…Thorkel jumps up and says: ‘Now we can see who is the strongest or is the best player. Let us break off the game’.”

2
S
TAVE
. Almost certainly genuine Egil.

3
A
FTER SUNSET
. Skallagrim’s ‘shape-strength’, like his father’s, affects him in the evening. Cf. his feat of strength by night related in
ch.
XXX
.

4
K
ING
O
LAF
. Olaf the Quiet, reigned 1067–93; son of King Harald Hardrada who fell at Stamford Bridge, 1066.

CHAPTER XLI

1
F
RANKLIN
(Höldr). An untitled person who takes rank in the social scale above the
bóndi
, and is a freeholder by birth (óðalsmaðr, óðalborinn), Hkr.
IV
, 338. The word is not derived from
halda
to hold, but is identical with A.S.
hœleð
, Germ,
held
(hero). For Biorn’s attitude, cf. the story in the
Fornmannasögur
version of
King Harald Hardrada’s Saga
, ch. 62, where the king offers one Hogni the title of landed man but Hogni begs to be excused from taking the honour, “Because I know that that will be said (as true it is), then when landed men be come together, ‘There shall Hogni sit outermost; he is the
least among landed men, for that he is of bonder’s kin’; then will the name of landed man be in no wise to mine honour, rather a thing to laugh at. Now will I rather be named bonder, that I have the birth for. There will be rather somewhat of honour for me in that talk, that then it will be said (though it amount to little), wheresoever bonders be come together, that Hogni is of them the foremost”.

2
T
AKEN IN THANKFUL WISE
. See
here
. Thorolf was plainly a man of tact.

3
A
RINBIORN
. This is the beginning of a deep and lifelong friendship. Arinbiorn is mentioned also in Landn. and in Hkr.

CHAPTER XLIII

1
C
URDS
(skyr). Doubtless the
lac concretum
of Tacitus (
Germania
, ch. 23).
Skyr
is astaple article of food in Iceland to-day; many foreigners find it unattractive at first, but the taste for it grows with use. It is thick and pasty, with a clean, sour flavour. Served (as it is) with cream and sugar, it is a dish for kings.

CHAPTER XLIV

1
B
LOOD-OFFERING UNTO THE
G
ODDESSES
(Dísablót). Dame Bertha Phillpotts (
Cambridge Medieval History
, vol.
II
, p. 486) thinks that the
Disir
—‘(supernatural) female beings’—probably covered both the Valkyries and the Norns. There was a great ‘Hall of the Goddesses’ at Upsala through which, when he ‘happed to be at a sacrifice to the Goddesses’ King Adils rode his horse; “and the horse tripped his feet under him… and the king fell forward from off him, so that his head smote on a stone, and he brake his skull, and the brains lay on the stones, whereby he gat his bane” (Yngl. 33). Earl Hakon the Great had a private Goddess, Thorgerd Shrine-bride,
^*
to whom he is said in the
Jómsvíkinga Saga
to have offered up his son in order to escape defeat in his battle against the Jomsburg vikings in Hiorung-wick; the Jomsburgers were overborne by foul weather and a great hail-storm, and thought they saw a woman on Earl Hakon’s ship, “and it seemed to them as if arrows flew thick and fast from every finger of her, but every arrow was the bane of a man” (
Fornmannasögur
, 1, 176). Dame Bertha Phillpotts (
op. cit.
) observes that the Dísir are “too capricious to be called guardian spirits. Those of one family, provoked at the coming change of faith, are credited with having killed one of its representatives. We see the reasonableness of the attitude taken up by a would-be convert, who stipulates that the missionary shall guarantee him the mighty archangel Michael as his ‘attendant angel’ (fylgju-engill)”. The sad case referred to is that of a son of Hall of the Side, mentioned (Nj. 95) as
þiðrandi, sá er Dísir drápu
—‘whom the
Goddesses slew’. Thidrandi’s death is related at length in the so-called
Olaf Tryggvison Saga Major
, a work much diluted and marred with monkish additions: Dasent summarises the curious story in his introduction (Nj. vol. I, p. xx).

2
This episode in Atley should be compared with the Rabelaisian scene in the house of Armod Beard, pp. 170–3.

3
S
TAVE
. ‘Shatterer of helm-bane ogress’ (brjótr herkumla sverre-flagþa)—shatterer of the
axe
, e.g. by using it too violently, as Skallagrim did with King Eric’s gift,
ch.
XXXVII
; so
warrior.
‘Sword-saplings’—
men.

4
C
UP-MAID
(ölselja). F.J. recalls that in Valhalla the Valkyries pour out the ale for the heroes of bliss (Einherjar).

5
R
UNES
(rúnar). The ancient runic alphabet of 24 letters is found in inscriptions, generally on stones, all over the North. Sophus Bugge, and Prof. von Friesen of Upsala, have shown that it is derived from the Greek (not, as formerly supposed, the Latin) alphabet. “Once on a time the self-same speech was spoken by every ‘Gothic’ tribe from Roumania to Norway. As separate tribes were isolated, this language split of course into different tongues”,
C.P.B.
vol. I, p. 573. The language of the runes is thus the oldest ‘Northern Tongue’, going back to about 300
A.D
.

Runes were held to be magic mysteries of Odin’s invention. In
Hávamál
He says: “Runes shalt thou find and staves to read, most great staves, most steadfast staves, which Fimbul-þulr drew, and the High Gods made, and Hroptr of the Powers scored: Odin among Æsir, but for Elves Dainn, and Dvalinn for Dwarves, Alsviðr for Giants. I Myself scored some” (
C.P.B.
vol. I, p. 25).

For Egil’s powers with runes, cf. also
ch.
LXXII
.

6
S
TAVE
. ‘Root of the fierce beast’s ear-tree’ (óþs dýrs viþar róta)—
the root
(i.e. part nearest the head)
of the horn
(ear-tree)
of the aurochs:
in short, the upper part of the drinking-horn. ‘Ale that Bard did sign’ (ǫl þats Bárøþr signde); the cups were ‘signed to the Æsix’ (i.e. the Gods) after ancient wont, O.H. 113.

7
S
TAVE
. ‘Wild-ox’s bill-drops’ (atgeira úra ýring), lit. ‘the raindrops of the bill
or
halberd of the aurochs’; the aurochs’s ‘bill’ is its horn—
a drinking horn:
the’ rain-drops’ of that—
beer
. The last couplet is

rigna getr at regne

regnbjóþr Hǫars þegna.

The ‘rain of Hoar’s thanes’ (Odin’s thanes; i.e. the Gods) is
poetry.
Egil thus says, Ί am making a poem’ (F.J.): a somewhat gratuitous and pointless piece of information. Personally, I do not doubt (in view of the immediate sequel) that a double meaning is intended, and the suggestion called up by
oddský
(spear-sky) in the previous line is carried into this last couplet: the Gods can rain not poems only, but swords of vengeance on poison-mixing ale-begrudgers such as Bard.

8
R
ANSACK
. ‘Rannsaka’ is the regular legal term for a domiciliary search, whether for a criminal or for stolen goods. Cf. the ransacking at Mewlithe (Eb. 18, pp. 33–4), and Arnkel’s ransacking for Odd Katlason (
ibid.
20, pp. 44–7).

CHAPTER XLV

1
W
HEN THE SEARCH-PARTIES … SHIP
(er leiti bar í milli þeira ok skipsins). Lit. ‘When a slope
or
rising brow was brought
or
came between them and the ship’; i.e. the ship lay in what was ‘dead ground’ for them. Cf. p. 121, where a similar phrase is used.

2
S
TAVE
. ‘Listland’, mod. Lister, a district in West Agdir: here it stands, as
pars pro toto
, for
Norway.
‘Hlokk’s rowan’—
King Eric
(Hlökk being a Valkyrie).

3
T
HE
K
ING’S DOOM
(dóm konungs). Thorir offered the King ‘self-doom’ or the right of laying down his own award, the most honourable terms that could be offered to the other side in a blood-suit.

CHAPTER XLVI

1
A
HALF-MONTH’S PEACE
. The matter-of-course way in which this arrangement (first do your trading, then make war—apparently on your customers) is recorded, is illuminating.

2
T
ORTURING
. The collocation of ideas,
skemtan
(amusement, entertainment) and
kvelja
(to torment; cf. Engl, ‘quell’) is to be noted. The amusement was (or was believed by the Norsemen to be) popular among barbarians such as the Kurlanders and the Wends; cf. O.T. 38, where Earl Sigvaldi, then captain of the Jomsburgers, kidnapped King Svein Twi-beard (later the conqueror of England) and forced him to make peace with the Wend-king, “‘Either else would the earl’, said he, ‘deliver King Svein to the Wends’. Now King Svein knew full well that then would the Wends torment him to death” (kvelja hann til bana).

It may seem curious that instances of refined cruelty in the North are characteristic not of the old heathen days but of the time after the introduction of Christianity. The Northman is by nature “a dog that killeth clean rather than a cat that patteth and sporteth with her prey”. But the religion of Love reached Europe, unhappily, from the East, well imbued with the spirit of Anti-Christ, intolerance, and the stake. The admired young missionary king, Olaf Tryggvison, dealt with refractory cases in a way of which neither Torquemada nor Philip II (nor even the Calvinist inventor of the ‘dormouse torture’) need have been ashamed; cf. O.T. 83, “Then let the king bear in a hand-basin full of glowing coals and set it on Eyvind’s belly, and presently his belly burst asunder”; and (
ibid.
87), “Raud cried out at him, saying that he would never trow in Christ, and blasphemed much; and the king waxed wroth, and said that Raud should have the worst
of deaths. So he let take him and bind him face up to a beam, and let set a gag between his teeth to open the mouth of him; then let the king take a ling-worm and set it to his mouth, but nowise would the worm enter his mouth, but shrank away whenas Raud blew upon him. Then let the king take a hollow stalk of angelica, and set it in the mouth of Raud, or, as some men say, it was his horn that he let set in his mouth; but they laid therein the worm, and laid a glowing iron to the outwards thereof, so that the worm crawled into the mouth of Raud, and then into his throat, and dug out a hole in the side of him, and there came Raud to his ending”. Cf. also the treatment of Brodir the Viking after Brian’s battle (Nj. 156). King Olaf the Holy also “taught men right manners”; and if they were slow to learn, he let “maim them of hand or foot,
or sting their eyes out”
(O.H. 72). I will add to these instances the account of the vengeance taken upon Sigurd Slembi-deacon, an able adventurer and claimant to the throne of Norway in the chaotic years that followed the death of King Sigurd Jerusalem-farer. “They brake his legs asunder with axe-hammers, and his arms withal. Then they stripped him of his clothes, and were minded to flay him quick, and they ripped the scalp off his head; but they might not do it, because of the blood-rush. Then they took walrus-hide whips and beat him long, so that well nigh was the hide off, as if it were flayed. But sithence they took a stock and shot it at the backbone of him, so that it went asunder. Then they dragged him to a tree and hanged him, and hewed off his head sithence” (Hkr.
Saga of Ingi, son of Harald
, ch. 12). This gives us a christian standard, some two centuries nearer our own time, by which to measure such roughness as we may find in Egil and elsewhere under the old dispensation.