Egil’s Saga

260 Pages·1986·11.18 MB·English

by  Hermann Pálsson

@
PENGUIN CLASSICS
EGIL’S SAGA
ADVISORY EDITOR: BETTY RADICE
Hermann Pálsson studied Icelandic at the University of Iceland and
Celtic at University College, Dublin. He is now Professor of
Icelandic at the University of Edinburgh, where he has been teach­
ing since 1950. He is the General Editor of the New Saga Library
and the author of several books on the history and literature of
medieval Iceland; his more recent publications include Legendary
Fiction in Medieval Iceland (with Paul Edwards) and Art and
Ethics in HrafnkeVs Saga. Hermann Pálsson has also translated
HrafnkeVs Saga, and collaborated with Magnus Magnusson in
translating Laxdxla Saga, The Vinland Sagas, King Haraid's Saga
and NjaVs Saga for Penguin Classics.
•
Paul Edwards read English at Durham University, Celtic and
Icelandic at Cambridge, and then worked in West Africa for nine
years. He is now Reader in English Literature at Edinburgh Uni­
versity. He has written several books on Icelandic studies with
Hermann Pálsson, and has published books and articles on African
history and literature, and on English literature, mainly on
nineteenth-century poetry.
•
Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards have also translated Seven
Viking Romances and Orkneyinga Saga for Penguin Classics.

E G IL’S SAGA
*
TRANSLATED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
HERMANN PÁLSSON
AND
PAUL EDWARDS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
Viking Penguin Inc., 40 West 23rd Street, New York, New York 10010, U.S.A.
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Penguin Books Canada Limited, 2801 John Street, Markham, Ontario, Canada L3R 1B4
Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand
This translation first published 1976
Reprinted 1978, 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986
Copyright © Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards, 1976
All rights reserved
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading
Set in Monotype Garamond
Except in the United States of America,
this book is sold subject to the condition
that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise,
be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated
without the publisher's prior consent in any form of
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Contents
Introduction 1
Note on the Translation 18
EGIL’S SAGA 19
Glossary of Proper Names 240
Chronological Note 248
Maps
Norway i *51
Norway 2
West Iceland *53
Borg and Environs *54

Introduction
Of the many memorable characters to be found in the litera­
ture of medieval Iceland, none is quite like the title hero of this
tale, Egil Skallagrimsson. From his first appearance as an ugly,
recalcitrant child, greedy for gifts and singing his own praises,
to his last as an old man pushed around the kitchen by serving
women, but still a killer and poet, everything he does and says
bears the stamp of an individual, achieved by the very multi­
plicity of the roles he plays. The ruthless viking is also the poet
of his own grief; he is a sorcerer, yet his mastery of runes can
cure sickness; he is an ingenious lawyer and a raging drunk,
a wanderer on the face of the earth and a settled farmer, an
enemy of kings over family honour and a miser, a Machiavelli
and a puppet. He is inflated far beyond the type of viking hero,
yet he also falls short of it, and while he is often on the edge of
the tragic he eludes definition. He can be vicious, absurd,
infantile, pathetic, but he is never dull, and though we may not
like some of the things he does we are never allowed to settle
into a fixed attitude towards him.
Egil*s Saga is one of five major sagas dealing with native
Icelandic figures on a scale akin to the epic novel.1 It was
probably written about 1230, and though like most sagas it is
anonymous there are good reasons for thinking that it was
composed by Snorri Sturluson (1179-1241), .the author of
Heimskringla and the Prose Edda. Snorri lived for a while at
Borg, where Egil farmed, and spent most of his adult life in
the district of Borgarf jord. Egil*s Saga shares with Heimskringla
a vision of early Scandinavian and English history, an under­
standing and subde illustration of human motives, and a
narrative design offering a panoramic view of the viking world
1. The other four are NjaVsSaga (Penguin Classics, i960), Laxdala Saga
(Penguin Classics, 1969), Eyrbyggja Saga (Southside, 1973) and Grettir’s
Saga (Toronto University Press, 1974).
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INTRODUCTION
from the middle of the ninth century to the end of the tenth.
The scene changes constantly in Egl*s Saga, from the opening
chapters set in Norway, to Sweden, Finland and Lapland,
south to the Low Countries and west to Britain and Iceland.
The Saga starts with King Harald Fine-Hair’s establishment of
Norwegian unity at the cost of tyranny and war, and the killing
or expulsion of many of Norway’s greatest chieftains and their
followers; it closes in Iceland with the slow growth of unity by
common agreement within the law, honouring the achieve­
ments of the founding fathers of the Icelandic nation whilst
acknowledging the stresses out of which this stability came
and the persistence of the impulse towards arbitrary action and
crude personal violence. The narrative ranges through several
generations from Egil’s grandfather Kveldulf, introduced in
the opening chapter, to his grandson Skuli mentioned in the
last sentence - both of them vikings, for all the changes that
have taken place in the years between.
However, Egil’s grandson is seen at the end fighting
against Olaf Tryggvason, the proselytizing Christian King of
Norway, whereas his grandfather Kveldulf belongs to a world
that was remote and unfamiliar even at the time of the Saga’s
composition. The opening pages establish a paradigm for the
family to which Egil belongs, with its demonic roots and
enigmatic character. Kveldulf marries the daughter of his
viking friend Berle-Kari, of whom we are told casually ‘ he was
a berserk*. Kveldulf himself is even more sinister, for his name
means ‘Evening Wolf’ and we learn that ‘there was talk of his
being a shape-changer’. Yet when their viking days are over,
these two killers settle down comfortably on their farms.
A suggestion of the ambiguous poet-viking that Egil is to
become appears in the second chapter where Egil’s great-
uncle, Olvir Hnufa, a famous viking, falls in love with a girl
called Solveig the Fair. ‘Many were the love-songs that Olvir
composed for Solveig,’ but her brothers refuse his proposal
and Olvir gives up the viking life to join King Harald Fine-
Hair as one of his court poets. Members of the family fall into
contrasting categories, a light side and a dark. Thus Kveldulf
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