Egil’s Saga (49 page)

²
To
BE PICKED UP LIKE FORFEIT GOODS
(uppnœmir).
Uppnœmr
(adj.) means one who can be ‘uptaken’, taken away, got the better of, brought to heel: then, as a law term, seizable, forfeitable property. It is of course impossible to say whether the technical sense was in Egil’s mind: in modern Icel. it has, I believe, entirely vanished, and
uppnœmr
in every-day use means simply ‘helpless’.

³
A
GREAT FLAT STONE
(hellustein mikinn). There is a parallel in the
Waterdale Saga
, ch. 41, for this singular breastplate, which must have been as ponderous to fight in as the armour of Tweedledum and Tweedledee as portrayed by Tenniel.

⁴
S
PAN NEW.
Icel.
spánýir.

CHAPTER LXXVI

¹
I
N HIS SAGA AND…IN THOSE SONGS.
F.J. quotes Hak. 8, “Then went he east-away beyond Gautland and harried there, and gat great tribute from the land”, and the half-stave preserved in that chapter from Gutthorm Cinder’s
Hakon’s Drapa
:

Shielded by skirt of Odin
He won scat of the Gautfolk;
Gold-hewer the all-bounteous
Won spear-storms in that faring.

²
Egil gave his long-ship to Thorstein partly, no doubt, because he could not take her to Iceland; cf. note on ‘Long-ship’, p. 254.

CHAPTER LX XVII

¹
I
RISH THRALLS.
These were not uncommon, but there is no sound reason for thinking there was any important admixture of Keltic blood among the Icelanders. Of the 400 landnámamenn, or settlers, it has been estimated that 50 at most came from the Hebrides, Ireland, Caithness, and England. Of those 50 some were vikings who happened to be sojourning in those parts, but some were, no doubt, of mixed blood. Queen Aud, who settled Laxriverdale, was the widow of Olaf the White, Norse King in Dublin: she had Irish thralls. Olaf the Peacock was himself the son of an Irish princess taken in war and bought for a concubine by his father. Certain names, e.g. Kjallakr, Kjartan, Dufþakr, Njáll, betray a Keltic origin. For the murder of Thord Lambison by these Irish thralls, cf. the story of Hiorleif’s fate, Landn. 8: “But in the spring he would fain sow. He had but one ox, and he let the thralls drag the plough. But when Hiorleif and his were at the hall, then counselled Dufthak that they [i.e. the thralls] should slay the ox, and say that a bear of the wood had slain it; but then should they set upon Hiorleif and his when they sought for the bear. After that, said they unto Hiorleif these things. But when they fared to seek the bear, and drifted apart in the wood, then slew the thralls every one his man, and murdered them all to an even number with themselves. They fled away with the wives of them and their farmstock and the boat. The thralls fared to those islands that they saw in the sea in the south-west, and made their dwelling there awhile… Ingolf fared west to Hiorleifs-head. And when he saw Hiorleif dead, then spake he: ‘Little befitted it here for a good fellow, that thralls should be his bane; and I see that so it betideth unto everyone who will
not do worship’”. Ingolf followed the thralls to the Westmen-Isles and slew them all: and place-names were named after them, including the name of the isles themselves—Vestmannaeyjar.

²
L
AMBI.
For the amusing episode between him and the furious Steinar, see
here
.

³
G
RIM
S
VERTINGSON
. Speaker of the Law 1002–3. Egil in his old age went to live with this son-in-law: there is more of him in
ch.
LXXXV.

⁴
S
KAPTI
T
HORODDSON.
Speaker of the Law 1004–30. He plays a prominent part in Nj. and Grett.

CHAPTER LXXVIII

¹
O
LAF THE
P
EACOCK.
Comes into several of the sagas, e.g. Ld., in which he plays a big part, and Nj. He was a man of much magnificence and show, and one of the great men in the Western Dales, of royal kin on both sides.

²
V
ERMUND.
Vermund the Slender, son of Thorgrim Kiallakson the Priest, dwelt at Bearhaven on the N. side of the Snaefellsness peninsula. His brother was Slaying Stir, ‘very masterful and exceeding in wrongfulness’, the father-in-law of Snorri the Priest. Vermund himself was peaceful and respectable; see Eb.
passim.

³
S
LAYING
B
ARDI.
The hero of the
Heath-slayings Saga.

⁴
T
HE
M
EADS
(Vellir). There is a farmstead to-day at Hvítárvellir on the south bank where the river Hvítá (Whitewater) opens into Burgfirth. The conditions of wind and tide here are apt to be dangerous precisely in the way described in the saga. I crossed in a heavy open boat from Hvanneyri to Einarsness on an evening of late summer of an unforgettable beauty, at the turn of the tide after a stormy day, when the whole countryside was bathed in the golden light of the low-swinging sun, and the vast ramparts of Skarðsheiði and the Heiðarhorn seemed to be built not of rock but of heavenly topaz and sapphire, because of the sunset glory on their new snows and the blue and amethystine shadows in the gullies. A few weeks later two farm-lads from Hvanneyri were drowned by a cruel accident very like that which cost the life of Bodvar Egilson.

⁵
S
HUT-BED
(lokrekkja). These were bedrooms for the heads of the household, made by partitioning off parts of the passage that ran round the hall behind the long benches (cf. p. 133); the way into the ‘shut-bed’ was by a door opening into the main body of the hall from behind the high seat. Thorkel Foulmouth had his ‘deeds of derring do’ carved over his shut-bed (Nj. 118). Cf. also Eb. 25, where it is said of Thorbiorn Jaw that, “A lock-bed he had made exceeding strong with beams of timber, but the Bareserks brake that up, so that the naves outside sprang asunder; yet was Stir himself the bane of Thorbiorn Jaw”; and the slaying of Thorgrim the Priest by Gisli Surson, Gisl. 9.

⁶
N
ONES
(nónskeið). The canonical hour of nones (3 p.m.). This is of course an anachronism.

⁷
A
T
F
REYJA’S.
The old poem
Grimnismál
, st. 13, describing the mansions of the blest, says:

Folk-vangr es inn níundi, enn þar Freyja rœðr sessa kostom í sal:

halfan val hon kýss hverjan dag, enn halfan Óðinn á.

‘Folk-mead
is the ninth, and there Freyja ruleth the choice of seats in the hall. Half the slain She chooseth every day, but half Odin hath.’
C.P.B.
think
halfan val
must mean the one half of mankind—i.e.
women.
This interpretation is supported by this passage in
Egla
, but by no other evidence.
Valr
is usually translated the ‘slain’, but it is quite possibly connected with
velja
—to
choose; (Valkyrja
, a ‘chooser of the slain’, or ‘chooser of the chosen’). If Freyja has half the ‘chosen dead’ that half may well be women, and
Folk-vangr
Her private Valhalla for ladies.

⁸
D
ULSE
(söl). “An edible species of seaweed,
Rhodymenia palmata
, having bright red, deeply divided fronds. In some parts applied to
Iridœa edulis
” (
O.E.D.
).

⁹
S
CORE IT ON A ROLLER
(rísta á kefli). An anachronism interpolated in the text in the thirteenth century (F.J.).

¹⁰
N
OTES ON
S
ONATORREK.
The
Sonatorrek
was probably composed about 960.

The measure is the same as that of the
Arinbjarnarkviða
: unrhymed alliterative verse of a slower movement than the wind-rushing short rhymed couplets of the
Höfuðlausn.
My rendering has kept the alliterations wherever possible, has aimed at faithfulness to the original, word for word and line by line, but above all has sought to model itself (by ear) on the beat and music of the original. The first stave reads:

Mjǫk erom tregt
Tungo at hrœra
Meþ loptvétt
Ljóþpundara.
Esa nú vœnlegt
Of Viþors þýfe,
Né hógdrœgt
Ór hugar fylgsne.

Lit. ‘Much is it for me difficult tongue to move with air-weight of lay-balance. ’Tis not now hopeful of Vithor’s theft, nor (is it) easy-drawn out of heart’s hiding place’.

St. 1. ‘Odin’s plunder’ (Viþors þýfe), the gift of song or skaldship, stolen by Odin from the Giants.

St. 2. ‘The fair thing found of Frigg’s kinsfolk’ (fagnafundr Friggjar niþja), skaldship.
Frigg
, Odin’s wife.

St. 3. ‘Faultless’, etc., referring (cf. st. 24) to the gift of skaldship. (The first four lines are very corrupt, and various guesses have been made at their meaning.)

‘Giant’s wound-stream’ (Jǫtons háls under), lit. ‘wounds of the Giant’s neck’—the
sea.

St. 4. ‘Maples’ (hlyner). Doubtless the big Norse maple,
acer platanoides.

St. 7. ‘Ran’ (Rán), Aegir’s wife, Goddess of the sea.

St. 8. ‘The Ale-smith’ (Qlsmiþr), Aegir, the God of the sea, and brewer to the Gods.

‘The fierce storm’s brother’ (hroþa vábrœþr), lit. ‘the storm’s baleful brother’—
Aegir.

St. 10. ‘The way of bliss’ (
munvegr
), i.e. to Valhalla.

St. 13. ‘Light wind of the Moon’s bride’ (byrvind Mána brúþar), a kenning for the
mind
, or
thought
.

‘Hild’ (Hildr), Goddess of War.

St. 15. ‘In Iceland dwelling.’ This is paraphrase and guess-work. Egil says
Elgjar galga
, ‘the Elk’s gallows’, which has been explained as a kenning for
ice
(the hunted elk perishing in the ice-hole); hence ‘the folk of the elk’s gallows’ means ‘the folk of Iceland’. I agree with
C.P.B.
that this is far-fetched.
C.P.B.
amends
Yggjar galga
, ‘Ygg’s gallows’ (i.e. the Ash, or World-Tree, of Yggdrasill). The text may be corrupt.

St. 16. The rest of the stanza is lost.

St. 18.
C.P.B.
shuffles and divorces the lines of this stanza (in my opinion, most unhappily), and moreover renders the first four lines in a sense which seems to misconceive their whole bearing. The stanza as it stands is very moving and very true in its swift and unprepared change of key: the scornful and self-sufficient pride of the first four lines suddenly softening to the wistful sadness of the last four.

‘Where the bee’s path beareth’ (býskeiþs bœ), lit. ‘the dwelling of the bee’s race
or
swift course’.

St. 19. ‘Judge of the Froth-mash’ (fens hrosta hǫfundr)—
Aegir
.

St. 21. ‘He which holdeth converse with men’ (Gauta spjalle), lit. the ‘speller’, or converser, with the Goths—
Odin.

St. 22. ‘Lord of Spears…Ruler of Wains…Awarder of Vict’ry’ (geirs dróttenn...vagna rúne… sigrhǫfundr)—
Odin
.

St. 23. ‘Vilir’s Brother ... Mimir’s Friend’ (bróPor Viles ... Mims vinr)—
Odin.

St. 24. ‘God of Battles, Great Foe of Fenrir’ (Ulfs báge víge vanr), lit. ‘Wolf’s Foe, to battle wont’; the Foe of the Wolf Fenrir, with whom He must fight at the Twilight of the Gods—
Odin
.

St. 25. ‘The Wolf’s right Sister—All-Father’s Foe’s’ (Tveggja bága njǫrva nipt), lit. ‘Tveggi’s foe’s near (i.e. proper, not half-) sister’, the Goddess of death—
Hell.
Tveggi is probably a name of Odin. The ness is Digraness (modern Borgarnes), where Kveldulf and Skallagrim, and now Egil’s sons Bodvar and Gunnar, are laid in howe.

¹¹
F
ITIAR IN STORD
. See the account of this great battle in Hkr. (Hak. 28–32), where there is also a translation (but, like all Morris’s translations of skaldic poetry, unsatisfactorily smooth and ‘literary’) of Eyvind Skaldspiller’s
Hákonarmál
, with its grand overture:

Göndul ok Skögul sendi Gauta-Týr
at kjósa of konunga:

hverr Yngva ættar skyldi með Óðni fara
í Valhöll at vesa.

‘Gondul and Skogul the Goths’-God sent to choose of the kings’; the Valkyries of the God of Hosts halting their steeds beside the dying but victorious king, to summon him home.

¹²
N
OTES ON
A
RINBJARNARKVIĐA.
Unluckily the text of this third great poem of Egil’s is corrupt and mutilated.

The measure is the measure of the
Sonatorrek.
The first two staves say in effect, ‘I am a proud man, and I speak my mind’. St. 3–10 recount the episode of the
Höfuðlausn
in York. St. 11 is almost lost. The rest is praise of Arinbiorn’s nobility, truth, and generosity, ending in the last stave with the proud Horatian theme, “Exegi monumentum sere perennius”.

St. 3. ‘The Hersir’—
Arinbiorn.

St. 5. The grandeur of this justifies quotation:

Vasa tunglskin
tryggt at líta
né ógnlaust
Eiríks bráa,
þás ormfránn
ennemáne
skein allvalds
œgegeislom.

St. 6. ‘Bolster-hire’ (bolstrverþr), the price of a night’s lodging, paid in this case in the form of the
Höfuðlausn.
‘Him that is make of the fish of the wildwood’ (maka hœings markar), lit. ‘make or equal of the forest-trout’, i.e. of the worm or serpent
—Odin
(from a story in Ed. of His becoming a snake and in that form discovering the art of poesy). ‘Ygg’s cup
’—skaldship
(Ygg, a by-name of Odin).

St. 7. ‘Knob of hats’ (hattar staup). Egil is never tired of this theme.

St. 8. ‘Noddle’, Icel.
tira
, which F. J. says is
ἅπ. λεγ.
of unknown meaning; query, ‘head’ or ‘gift’. Last two couplets:

ok sá muþr
es mína bar
Hǫfoþlausn
fyr hilmes kné.