Egil Skallagrimsson
Egil Skallagrimsson is attested extensively in Egil's Saga, where he emerges as a warrior, poet, and complex family man across some twenty-five citations spanning his life from youth to old age.
Egil Skallagrimsson is attested extensively in Egil's Saga, where he emerges as a warrior, poet, and complex family man across some twenty-five citations spanning his life from youth to old age. The son of Skallagrim and grandson of Kveldulf, Egil's career spans violent episodes of escape and combat, diplomatic missions, and a literary legacy preserved through his own verses.
Egil's early life is marked by physical daring. He stabbed Bard through the middle with his sword so that the point came out his back (Egil's Saga, The slaying of Bard). Fleeing afterward, he searched all night for a boat but found men guarding every strand (Egil's Saga, Flight of Egil). At dawn he saw another island across a wide sound and swam across with his weapons wrapped in his cloak (Egil's Saga, Flight of Egil). In captivity, he freed himself by working at a post until he loosened it from the floor, then used his teeth to untie his bonds (Egil's Saga, Of Thorolf's and Egil's harrying). He freed all his comrades, broke through a smooth wooden planking to escape, and seized a burning beam from the kitchen to thrust under the eaves of the dining-hall (Egil's Saga, Of Thorolf's and Egil's harrying).
In his middle years, Egil volunteered for a dangerous tribute mission to Vermaland so that his son Thorstein would not have to go, declaring "Thorstein shall not go on this journey; for he is in nowise bound thereto" (Egil's Saga, Mission to Vermaland). He gave Alf a fur cloak as a parting gift (Egil's Saga, Egil gathers tribute), and Alf in return warned him of ambushers waiting in Eida-wood (Egil's Saga, Egil and his band slay twenty-five men). In the ensuing fight, Egil bound his comrades' wounds, none of which were mortal (Egil's Saga, Egil and his band slay twenty-five men).
Egil's later years brought both generosity and grief. He gave Thorstein a longship brought from Denmark (Egil's Saga, Egil comes to Thorfinn's) and sent Thord at Aurland to sell his lands in Sogn and Hordaland (Egil's Saga, Egil comes to Thorfinn's). When his son Bodvar drowned, Egil found the body at Einars-ness and carried it to Kveldulf's mound for burial (Egil's Saga, Death of Bodvar). He settled at Borg and became an old man, never going abroad again out of Iceland -- the main reason being that he could not remain in Norway (Egil's Saga, Hacon's wars and death). He praised Arinbjorn's generosity in verse, declaring it would be wrong if such a man's gifts were wasted, and that he would be "false to my friend" and "an untrue steward of Odin's cup" if he did not honour him in poetry (Egil's Saga, Hacon's wars and death).
The saga's final portrait is of a man whose relationships had soured: Egil loved his son Thorstein little, and Thorstein was not affectionate with his father (Egil's Saga, Of Thorstein Egil's son).
All twenty-five citations derive from a single source, Egil's Saga, which means there are no cross-source tensions to examine. What the saga does offer, however, is a remarkably varied portrait drawn across a long life. The early chapters present a figure of almost superhuman physical resourcefulness -- swimming with weapons, breaking through walls, loosening posts with brute strength (Egil's Saga, Flight of Egil; Of Thorolf's and Egil's harrying). The middle chapters shift register to show a man of loyalty and practical competence, volunteering for dangerous missions and exchanging gifts with allies (Egil's Saga, Mission to Vermaland; Egil gathers tribute).
The later chapters introduce a more melancholy figure. The poet who composed praise for Arinbjorn and grief for Bodvar becomes an old man who cannot leave Iceland and whose own son does not love him (Egil's Saga, Hacon's wars and death; Of Thorstein Egil's son). The saga traces this arc without editorial comment, letting the contrast between the young warrior who escaped captivity by chewing through ropes and the old man unloved by his son stand on its own.
Egil's poetry, preserved within the saga text, offers a distinctive voice. His praise poem for Arinbjorn frames generosity as a moral obligation -- "Wrong were it if he / Who wrought me good, / Gold-splender lavish, / Such gifts had cast" (Egil's Saga, Hacon's wars and death). His self-identification as a "steward of Odin's cup" links his poetic vocation to divine sanction (Egil's Saga, Hacon's wars and death).
Appears in: Beings, Entities in Egil's Saga, Norse Tradition
On trail: Genealogies