Egil’s Saga (23 page)

Hadd and Frodi saw the fall of Bergonund, and ran thitherward. Egil turned to meet them. He shot the halberd at Frodi, and through his shield and into his breast, so that the point came out at his back. Fell he down straightway on his back dead. Egil took his sword then and turned to meet Hadd, and they bandied few blows betwixt them ere Hadd fell.

Then came up the boys, and Egil spake with them: “Look ye here to Onund your master and these his fellows, that beast nor fowl slit not their corpses”.

Egil went then his ways, and not far before his fellows came to meet him, eleven, but six minded the ship. They asked what business
⁸
he had gotten done. Then quoth he:
⁹

Sat we too long in lowly

Lot—(better erst I warded

My fee)—beneath this bough of

Bright home o’ the ling-firth mackerel,

Ere I let learn Bergonund

Lie in’s wounds, and deck’d out

Bedfellow of Bor’s Son

With blood of Hadd and Frodi.

Then spake Egil: “We shall now turn back to the farmstead and fare like men of war: slay all the men that we catch, and take all that fee that we can come at”.

They fare to the farmstead and leap there into the house and slay there fifteen or sixteen men. Some escaped their onset. They robbed there all the fee, but spoilt that which they might not fare away with. They drave the cattle to the strand and hewed them: bare aboard the boat so much as it could take: fared after that on their way, and rowed out by the island sound.

Egil was now all wrathful,
¹⁰
so that there was then no speaking to him. He sat at the tiller of the boat, and when they steered out into the firth towards Herdla, then rowed out to meet them Rognvald, the King’s son, and they thirteen in company aboard that painted caravel of his. They had then heard that Egil’s ship lay in Herdla-weir. They were minded to give Onund warning of Egil’s faring. And when Egil saw the ship, then knew he her at once.

He steered his straightest at them, and when the ships drew together then came the beak of the cutter on the cheek of the caravel; she heeled over so that the sea fell in on the other side and filled the ship. Egil leapt then up aboard of her and grabbed his halberd: shouted to his men that they should not let one come off with his life that was aboard the caravel. That was then easy, seeing there then was no defence: they were all slain in the water, and not one came off. Died they there, thirteen, Rognvald and his companions.

Egil and his rowed then in to the isle of Herdla. Then quoth Egil a stave:
¹¹

We battled: and with blood there

Of Bloodaxe’ son and Gunnhild’s

Glad redden’d I the war-flame—

Nor reck I for their raging.

And yet there fell of saplings

Of ocean-moon thirteen, too,

Aboard one single caravel.

Stir-maker’s task is done now.

And when Egil and his were come to Herdla, then ran they straightway up to the farmstead with all their weapons. But when Thorir saw that and his homemen, then ran they straightway from the farmstead, and saved themselves, all they that could lift foot, men and women. Egil and his robbed there all the fee that they might put their hands upon. So now fared they out to the ship. There was then withal not long to wait till a breeze sprang up from the land. They made ready to sail, and when they were about to set sail Egil went up into the isle.

He took in his hand a hazel-pole, and went to a certain point of rock that looked toward the land. Then took he a horse’s head and set it up upon the pole. And now gave he forth his formular, and spake as thus:

“Here set I up a Scorn-Pole, and turn I this Scorn unto the hand of King Eric and of Queen Gunnhild” (he turned the horse’s head in towards the land). “Turn I this Scorn unto those land-spirits which do these lands inhabit, so that they may all fare on wildered ways, and not one of them reach nor rest in her own home, until they shall have driven King Eric and Gunnhild forth from the land.”

Therewithal he shot down the pole into a cleft of the rock, and there let it stand. And he turned the head in towards the land, but he scored runes on the pole, and those say all that formular.
¹²

After that, went Egil ashipboard: they set sail and sailed out into the main sea. Then the breeze began to freshen, and it made stormy weather and a favouring wind. Then gat the ship mightily on her way.

Then quoth Egil:
¹³

Out ’fore the stem the storm-giant,

Strainer of branches, planeth

With chops of tempest-chisel

Chill vast way of keel-deer;

And swale-robed sallow-fiend,

Sweeping still without pity

In gusts o’er swan of Gestil,

Roars past gunnal and fore-stem.

And now sailed they into the main sea, and it sped them well of their journey, and they came out of the main sea into Burg-firth. Held he there his ship to harbour, and they bare their stuff aland. Then fared Egil home to Burg, and his sailors found them lodging.

Skallagrim was become then old and infirm with age. Egil took to him then the management of fee and the care and ward of the household.

CHAPTER LVIII. OF THE DEATH OF SKALLAGRIM.

T
HERE was a man named Thorgeir. He had to wife Thordis, Yngvar’s daughter, the sister of Bera the mother of Egil. Thorgeir dwelt above Alptaness, at Lambistead. He had come out with Yngvar. He was rich and well esteemed of men. The son of her and Thorgeir was Thord, who dwelt at Lambistead after his father in that time when Egil came to Iceland.

That was then in the autumn, something before winter, that Thord rode in to Burg to see Egil his kinsman, and bade him home to a feast. He had let brew strong beer out there. Egil promised to come, and it was fixed for about a week hence. And when the week was gone, Egil made him ready for his journey, and with him Asgerd, his wife. They were in company ten or twelve.

And when Egil was ready, then went Skallagrim out with him, and turned to him before Egil went a-horseback, and spake:
¹
“Slow methinks hast thou been, Egil, in paying over of that fee that King Athelstane sent me. Or what way art thou minded shall be done with that fee?”

Egil saith, “Art thou now much needy of fee, father? I knew not that. Straightway shall I let thee have silver when I know that thou needest: but I know thou must still have in thy keeping one chest, or twain, full of silver”.

“So methinks”, saith Skallagrim, “as that thou must think thou and I have shared out our loose goods between us. Thou’lt be content, may be, if I do as I like with that money that I have the keeping of.”

Egil saith, “Thou wilt think there’s no need to ask leave of me for that; because thou wilt have thine own will whatsoever I say”.

And now rode Egil away, until he was come to Lambistead. They took to him there well and joyfully: he should sit there three nights.

That same evening that Egil had fared from home, Skallagrim let saddle him his horse. Rode he then from home, when other men went to bed. He carried at his knee a chest big enow, and he had in the crook of his arm a brazen kettle, when he set forth. Men have since had that for true, that he hath let fare one or both into Krumm’s Well, and let fare down on the top of it a great flat stone.

Skallagrim came home about the midnight hour and went then to his place, and laid him down in his clothes. But in the morning, when it grew light and men clad themselves, then sat Skallagrim there against the post and was then dead, and so stiffened that men might nowise get him straightened out nor lift him, and ’twas tried all ways with him.

Then was a man set a-horseback. That one rode his hardest till he was come to Lambistead. Went he straightway unto Egil, and saith unto him these tidings. Then took Egil his weapons and clothes and rode home to Burg in the evening, and soon as he was gotten down from horseback went he in and into the passage which was round about the firehouse; but there were doors opening inwards from the passage to the seats. Egil ga him in to the seat and took Skallagrim by the shoulders and bent him backwards, laid him down in the seat and gave him then lyke-help. Then bade Egil take digging-tools and break open the wall of the south side, and when that was done, then took Egil under the upper part of Skallagrim but others took him by the feet. Bare they him across the house, and so out through the wall there where it had been broke open.
²
Bare they him then in that same hour down to Naustaness. There was a tilt rigged over him for the night. But in the morning, at flood-tide, was Skallagrim laid in a ship and rowed out to Digraness. There let Egil make a howe on the outward side of the ness. Therein was laid Skallagrim, and his horse and his weapons and smithy-tools. It is not told that any loose fee was laid in howe beside him.

Egil took the inheritance there, lands and loose goods. He ruled then over the household.

There was there with Egil Thordis, the daughter of Thorolf and of Asgerd.

CHAPTER LIX. OF EGIL’S FARING ABROAD THE THIRD TIME; WITH HOW HE WAS CAST ASHORE IN ENGLAND AND WAS FALLEN INTO THE HAND OF KING ERIC BLOODAXE AND QUEEN GUNNHILD.

E
RIC the King ruled one winter over Norway after the death of his father, King Harald, before Hakon, Athelstane’s-Fosterling,
¹
another son of King Harald, came to Norway from the west out of England; and that same summer fared Egil Skallagrimson to Iceland.

Hakon fared north to Thrandheim. He was there taken for King. They were, he and Eric, that winter, both Kings in Norway. But after, in the spring, drew they of either part a war-host together. Hakon had much the greater throng of men. Eric saw then no other choice for him but to flee the land. He fared abroad then with Gunnhild his wife and their children.

Arinbiorn the Hersir was fosterbrother of Eric the King, and fosterer of his child. He was dearest to the King of all the landed men. The King had set him to be lord over all the Firthfolk. Arinbiorn fared out of the land with the King.

They fared first west over seas to the Orkneys. Then gave he Ragnhild his daughter to Earl Arnfinn. After that, fared he with his host coasting south by Scotland, and harried there. Thence fared he south to England, and harried there. And when King Athelstane heard that, he summoned forces and fared against Eric. And when they were met, there were borne speeches of peace betwixt them; and that was in the peace-making that King Athelstane gave Eric rule over Northumberland,
²
but he should be warden of the land for King Athelstane against the Scots and Irish. King Athelstane had made Scotland pay scat to him after the fall of King Olaf, and yet was that folk ever untrue to him. King Eric had ever his seat and state in York.

So it is said, that Gunnhild let work a spell, and let that be in the spellworking, that Egil Skallagrimson should never bide in peace in Iceland until she should look upon him.

Now that summer, when Hakon and Eric had met and striven together for Norway, then was banned all faring to other lands out of Norway, and there came that summer no ships to Iceland and no tidings out of Norway. Egil Skallagrimson sat at his own house. But that second winter that he dwelt at Burg after the death of Skallagrim, then was Egil become unmerry, and so much the more was his ungladness as more the winter drew by. And when summer came, then Egil gave out that he is minded to make ready his ship for faring abroad that summer. He took then sailors. He is minded then to sail to England. They were aboardship thirty men. Asgerd was then left behind and took care of their house, but Egil was minded then to go and see King Athelstane and look to those promises that he had promised Egil at their parting.

Egil was not early ready, and when he put out into the main sea then were they somewhat late in getting a fair breeze. It began to draw towards autumn, and the wind grew strong. They sailed about Orkney from the north. Egil would nowise put in there, because he deemed that the might of King Eric belike would stand over all in the isles. They sailed then coasting south by Scotland, and had a great storm and cross winds. They beat about off Scotland, and so off England from the north. But of an afternoon when it began to grow mirk, there was a fierce gale. They find nought afore there were shoal breakers on their outer beam, and the like ahead. There was then no other choice, but to stand in towards land; and so did they: sailed then till she was wrecked ashore, and came aland by Humber mouth. There were all the men saved and the most part of the goods, except the ship; that was broken into shivers.

And when they found men to talk to, they learned these tidings, which Egil thought perilous: that King Eric Bloodaxe was there hard by, and Gunnhild, and they had there the realm to rule over, and he was but a short way thence, up in the burg of York. That learned he too, that Arinbiorn the Hersir was there with the King, and in great loving-kindness with the King.

And when Egil was sure of these tidings, then took he counsel with himself. It seemed to him there was little hope of coming off, even though he should try this, to fare with hidden head so long, a way as it would likely be before he might come out of the realm of King Eric. He was then easily known to any who might see him. It seemed to him that that was but the fashion of a little man,
³
to be took in flight. Hardened he then his heart, and made this his rede, that straight that very night that they were thither come, then getteth he him a horse and rideth straightway to the burg.

He came there at evening time, and he rode straightway into the burg. And now he had a hood over his helm, and all his weapons had he. Egil asked where might be that garth
⁴
in the burg, that belonged to Arinbiorn. That was told him. He rode thither into the garth. But when he came to the hall, gat he down from his horse and found a man to speak to. It was then said to him that Arinbiorn sat at meat. Egil spake: “I would, good lad, that thou go in, into the hall, and ask Arinbiorn: whether will he rather without-door or within, to talk with Egil Skallagrimson”.