The Sagas of the Icelanders

by Smilely, Jane

  The day after Thorstein came back home he sent his farmhand off to Leirulaek to tell Steinar to move house beyond Borgarhraun and be gone by the next evening with everything he had, or he would take advantage of his greater power, ‘and if I do, then you won’t have the chance to leave’.

  Steinar moved out to the coast at Snaefellsstrond and set up a farm at the place called Ellidi, and that was the end of his dealings with Thorstein Egilsson.

  Thorgeir Blund lived at Anabrekka and quarrelled with Thorstein about everything he could.

  On one occasion when Egil and Thorstein met they talked at great length about their kinsman Thorgeir Blund and agreed entirely about him. Then Egil spoke this verse:

  57. In the past I pulled the land

  out of Steinar’s hands with words

  thinking I was working

  in Thorgeir’s favour.

  My sister’s son failed me,

  gave me golden promises,

  yet Snooze, to my astonishment,

  could not refrain from causing harm.

  Thorgeir Blund left Anabrekka and went south to Flokadal, because even though he was prepared to back down, Thorstein refused to have anything to do with him.

  Thorstein was a straightforward, just and unimposing man, yet stood firm if others imposed on him and proved a tough opponent when challenged. He and Tungu-Odd were on cold terms after Steinar’s case.

  Odd was the chieftain of Borgarfjord on the south side of Hvita then. He was the godi of the temple to which everyone living south of Skardsheidi paid tribute.

  88 Egil Skallagrimsson lived a long life, but in his old age he grew very frail, and both his hearing and sight failed. He also suffered from very stiff legs. Egil was living at Mosfell with Grim and Thordis then.

  One day Egil was walking outdoors alongside the wall when he stumbled and fell.

  Some women saw this, laughed at him and said, ‘You’re completely finished, Egil, now that you fall over of your own accord.’

  Grim replied, ‘Women made less fun of us when we were younger. And I expect they find little of value in our womanizing now.’

  Egil said that things had reached that pass, and he spoke a verse:

  58. My head bobs like a bridled horse

  it plunges baldly into woe.

  my middle leg both droops and drips

  while both my ears are dry.

  Egil went completely blind. One winter day when the weather was cold, he went to warm himself by the fire. The cook said it was astonishing for a man who had been as great as Egil to lie around under people’s feet and stop them going about their work.

  ‘Don’t grudge me that I warm myself through by the fire,’ said Egil. ‘We should make room for each other.’

  ‘Stand up,’ she said, ‘and go off to your bed and leave us to get on with our work.’

  Egil stood up, went off to his bed and spoke this verse:

  59. Blind I wandered to sit by the fire,

  asked the flame-maiden for peace;

  such affliction I bear on the border

  where my eyebrows cross.

  Once when the land-rich king

  took pleasure in my words

  he granted me the hoard

  that giants warded, gold.

  Another time Egil went over to the fire to keep warm, and someone asked him if his legs were cold and told him not to stretch them out too close to the fire.

  ‘I will do that,’ said Egil, ‘but I don’t find it easy to control my legs now that I cannot see. Being blind is dismal.’

  Then Egil spoke a verse:

  60. Time seems long in passing

  as I lie alone,

  a senile old man

  on the king’s guard. king’s guard: his back? a bed? his chest?

  My legs are two

  frigid widows,

  those women

  need some flame.

  This was at the start of Earl Hakon the Powerful’s reign. Egil Skallagrimsson was in his eighties then and still active apart from his blindness.

  In the summer, when everyone was preparing to ride to the Thing, Egil asked Grim to ride there with him. Grim was reluctant.

  When Grim spoke to Thordis, he told her what Egil had asked of him.

  ‘I want you to find out what lies behind this request of his,’ he said.

  Thordis went to see her kinsman Egil, who by that time had no greater pleasure in life than talking to her.

  When she saw him she asked, ‘Is it true that you want to ride to the Thing, kinsman? I’d like you to tell me what you’re planning.’

  ‘I will tell you what I’ve been thinking,’ he said. ‘I want to go to the Thing with the two chests full of English silver that King Athelstan gave to me. I’m going to have the chests carried to the Law Rock when the crowd there is at its biggest. Then I’ll toss the silver at them and I’ll be very much surprised if they all share it out fairly amongst themselves. I expect there’ll be plenty of pushing and shoving. It might even end with the whole Thing breaking out in a brawl.’

  Thordis said, ‘That sounds like a brilliant plan. It will live for as long as people live in Iceland.’

  Then Thordis went to talk to Grim and tell him about Egil’s plan.

  ‘He must never be allowed to get away with such a mad scheme,’ said Grim.

  When Egil brought up the subject of riding to the Thing with Grim he would have none of it, so Egil stayed at home while the Thing was held. He was displeased and wore a rather grumpy look.

  The cattle at Mosfell were kept in a shieling, and Thordis stayed there while the Thing took place.

  One evening when everyone was going to bed at Mosfell, Egil called in two of Grim’s slaves.

  He told them to fetch him a horse, ‘because I want to go to bathe in the pool’.

  When he was ready he went out, taking his chests of silver with him. He mounted the horse, crossed the hayfields to the slope that begins there and disappeared.

  In the morning, when all the people got up, they saw Egil wandering around on the hill east of the farm, leading a horse behind him. They went over to him and brought him home.

  But neither the slaves nor the chests of treasure ever returned, and there are many theories about where Egil hid his treasure. East of the farm is a gully leading down from the mountain. It has been noticed that English coins have been found in the gully when the river recedes after floods caused by sudden thaws. Some people believe Egil must have hidden his treasure there. Then there are large and exceptionally deep marshes below the hayfields at Mosfell, and it is claimed that Egil threw his treasure into them. On the south side of the rivers are hot springs with big pits nearby, where some people believe Egil must have hidden his treasure, because a will-o’-the-wisp is often seen there. Egil himself said he had killed Grim’s slaves and hidden his treasure somewhere, but he never told a single person where it was.

  In the autumn Egil caught the illness that eventually led to his death. When he died, Grim had his body dressed in fine clothes and taken over to Tjaldanes, where a mound was made that Egil was buried in, along with his weapons and clothes.

  89 Grim from Mosfell was baptized when Christianity was made the law in Iceland and he had a church built at Mosfell. It is said that Thordis had Egil’s bones moved to the church. This is supported by the fact that when a cemetery was dug, after the church that Grim had had built at Hrisbru was taken down and set up at Mosfell, human bones were found under the site of the altar. They were much larger than normal human bones, and on the basis of old accounts people are certain they must have belonged to Egil.

  Skafti Thorarinsson the Priest, a wise man, was there at the time. He picked up Egil’s skull and put it on the wall of the churchyard. The skull was astonishingly large and even more incredible for its weight. It was all ridged on the outside, like a scallop shell. Curious to test its thickness, Skafti took a fair-sized hand-axe in one hand and struck the skull with it as hard as he could, to try to break it. A white
mark was left where he struck the skull, but it neither dented nor cracked. This goes to prove that such a skull would not have been easy for weak men to damage when it was covered with hair and skin. Egil’s bones were buried by the edge of the churchyard at Mosfell.

  90 Thorstein, Egil’s son, was baptized when Christianity came to Iceland and he had a church built at Borg. He was a devout and orderly man. He grew to an old age, died of illness and was buried at Borg in the church he had had built there.

  A great family is descended from Thorstein which includes many prominent men and poets. Thorstein’s descendants belong to the Myrar clan, as do all other descendants of Skallagrim. For a long time it was a family trait to be strong and warlike, and some members were men of great wisdom. It was a family of contrasts. Some of the best-looking people ever known in Iceland belonged to it, such as Thorstein Egilsson, his nephew Kjartan Olafsson, Hall Gudmundarson and Thorstein’s daughter Helga the Fair, whose love Gunnlaug Serpent-tongue and Hrafn the Poet contested. But most members of the Myrar clan were exceptionally ugly.

  Of Thorstein’s sons, Thorgeir was the strongest but Skuli was the greatest. He lived at Borg after his father’s day and spent a long time on Viking raids. He was at the stem of Earl Eirik’s ship Iron-prow in the battle where King Olaf Tryggvason was killed. Skuli fought seven battles on his Viking raids and was considered to be outstandingly resolute and brave. He went to Iceland afterwards and farmed at Borg, where he lived until his old age, and many people are descended from him. And here this saga ends.

  Translated by BERNARD SCUDDER

  THE SAGA OF THE PEOPLE OF VATNSDAL

  Vatnsdala saga

  Time of action: 875–1000

  Time of writing: 1270–1320

  The Saga of the People of Vatnsdal begins in Norway, as do most sagas of Icelanders, though its strange and sombre opening has more in common with scenes from legendary sagas. The birth of Ingimund, patriarch of the people of Vatnsdal, serves as an affirmation of the power of reconciliation within a community, for the wife of his father Thorstein was the sister of a man whom he had killed. Ingimund fights on the king’s side in the battle of Havsfjord and, like other settlers such as Ketil Flat-nose, consents only reluctantly to abandon his estate and social position as he looks towards a new life in Iceland. A hidden talisman, the gift of King Harald Fair-hair, guides him to his new home in Vatnsdal, and the sense of a protective good fortune continues to accompany his lineage as they live their lives in the beautiful Vatnsdal countryside.

  The events of the saga span five generations, but the narrative focus falls especially on the third of these, the sons of Ingimund and the conflicts in which they engage as they play their part in the creation myth of a region and a dynasty. On the death of Ingimund, his five sons divide among themselves the various tokens of family nobility: the farm, the ship and the wealth resulting from its trading voyages, the godord in which the family’s social authority is vested and the sword which symbolizes how all these elements can be defended. This weapon is shared by two of the sons, who take turns at wearing it at public gatherings. The saga explores the way in which successive generations handle these emblems of their family’s claim to distinction, as they strive to maintain order among volatile kinsfolk, and within the broader and often turbulent community.

  In its presentation of character the saga is generally clear and succinct.

  Vatnsdal

  Ingimund’s Ancestors and Family in Vatnsdal

  Its author’s sympathies, while never stated directly, are there for all to see: he even seems to relish the grotesque and sometimes comic aspect of the rogues and wretches whom his heroes encounter. The cast of characters is richly variegated, and the saga moves swiftly from one colourful episode to another, with its Viking expeditions, sea battles, pagan temples, berserk fits, witches and sorcerers, monstrous cats, murderous attacks and beautiful women. At times the narrative rises to classic splendour, as in the magnificent scene of Ingimund’s death (chs. 22–3). The ethic of the saga is undogmatically Christian, as the servants of good overcome the manifestations of a darker world, and heathen notions of fate and self-reliance merge seamlessly with a divine providence which watches over all of noble spirit.

  Some scholars have been tempted to think that The Saga of the People of Vatnsdal, with its learned style and its sense that nobility and goodness will always defeat malevolent forces in this world and the next, may have links with the Benedictine monastery and literary centre at Thingeyrar in the district in which the main action of the saga takes place.

  The Saga of the People of Vatnsdal is thought to have been written around the year 1300, but is only preserved in later manuscripts; the oldest vellum fragment (AM 445 b 4to) is dated 1390–1425. It is translated here by Andrew Wawn from the text in Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 8 (Reykjavik, 1939).

  1 There was a man named Ketil, nicknamed the Large. He was a mighty man, and lived on a farm called Romsdal, in the north of Norway. He was the son of Orm Broken-shell, who was the son of Hrossbjorn, son of Giant-Bjorn from the north of Norway. There were district-kings in Norway when the events of this saga took place. Ketil was a noble and wealthy man, of great strength, and very brave in all his exploits. He had been away raiding during the early part of his life, but as the years caught up with him he settled down on his estates. He married Mjoll, the daughter of An Bow-bender. By her Ketil had a son called Thorstein. He was good-looking though nothing out of the ordinary in terms of size or strength – his bearing and talents were up to the high standard of other young men at that time. Thorstein was eighteen years old when these events took place.

  At this time people had come to believe that there must be robbers or felons on the road which lay between Jamtland and Romsdal, because no one who set out along that highway ever came back; and even with fifteen or twenty people travelling together, not one had returned home. Thus people concluded that some extraordinary being must be living out there. Ketil’s men suffered least from this harassment, both in terms of loss of life and damage to property, and there was a good deal of reproachful talk to the effect that the man who was chieftain of the region was proving no sort of leader, in that no measures had been taken against such outrages. People claimed that Ketil had aged greatly; he showed little reaction, but pondered what had been said.

  2 On one occasion* Ketil said to Thorstein his son, ‘The behaviour of young men today is not what it was when I was young. In those days men hankered after deeds of derring-do, either by going raiding or by winning wealth and honour through exploits in which there was some element of danger. But nowadays young men want to be stay-at-homes, and sit by the fire, and stuff their stomachs with mead and ale; and so it is that manliness and bravery are on the wane. I have won wealth and honour because I dared to face danger and tough single combats. You, Thorstein, have been blessed with little in the way of strength and size. It is more than likely that your deeds will follow suit, and that your courage and daring will match your size, because you have no desire to emulate the exploits of your ancestors; you reveal yourself to be just as you look, with your spirit matching your size. It was once the custom of powerful men, kings or earls – those who were our peers – that they went off raiding, and won riches and renown for themselves, and such wealth did not count as part of any legacy, nor did a son inherit it from his father; rather was the money to lie in the tomb alongside the chieftain himself. And even if the sons inherited the lands, they were unable to sustain their high status, if honour counted for anything, unless they put themselves and their men at risk and went into battle, thereby winning for themselves, each in his turn, wealth and renown – and so following in the footsteps of their kinsmen. I believe that the old warriors’ ways are unknown to you – I wish I could teach them to you. You have now reached the age when it would be right for you to put yourself to the test, and find out what fate has in store for you.’

  Thorstein answered, ‘If ever provocation worked, this would be provocation enough.�
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  He stood up and walked away and was very angry.

  A great forest lay between Romsdal and Oppland, through which a highway ran, though it was then impassable because of the felons who were thought to be lying in wait, though no one could say anything for sure about this. At that time it seemed quite an achievement to come up with any solution to the problem.

  3 It was shortly after father and son had talked together that Thorstein left the drinking on his own. His uppermost thought was to put his father’s luck to the test, and no longer to endure his taunting but to place himself at some risk. He took his horse and rode off on his own to the forest, to the place which he thought offered the greatest likelihood of encountering the felons, even though there seemed little hope of success against the kind of mighty force which he thought would be there. By this time, however, he would rather have laid down his life than have a wasted journey.

  He tethered his horse at the edge of the forest, and proceeded on foot and found a path which led off the main track; and after he had walked for quite some time, he came across a large and well-built house in the forest. Thorstein felt sure that the owner of the building was whoever had made the highway impassable for people. Thorstein then went into the hall, and there came across huge chests and many a treasure. There was a great pile of firewood and opposite this were sacks of wares and goods of every kind. Thorstein saw a bed there, far larger than any he had ever seen before. It seemed to him that the person who fitted into such a bed must be quite a size. The bed had splendid curtaining. There was also a table laid with clean linen, rich delicacies and the finest drink; Thorstein did not touch these things. He then sought some means whereby he would not immediately catch the eye of whoever lived in the house because, before they saw or spoke to each other, Thorstein wanted to find out what he was up against. He then made his way between the sacks and into the pile of goods and sat down there.