Egil Skallagrimsson, The Viking Warrior And Poet
Wikimedia CommonsEgil Skallagrimsson was one of the greatest Icelandic skaldic poets.
Few Vikings are known for the might of their pens, but Egil Skallagrimsson was as adept on the page as he was on the battlefield.
Born around 910 in Borg, Iceland, Skallagrimsson’s adventurous life and verses were captured in Egil’s Saga, a text thought to be written by the 13th-century Icelandic historian Snorri Sturluson.
The son of Norwegian settler Skalla-Grim Kveldulfsson and Bera Yngvarsdóttir, Skallagrimsson composed his first poem at the age of three and was also a scholar of runes whose apparent mastery of their magic powers assisted him several times during his journeys. The saga portrays Skallagrimsson as having a dual nature, being headstrong, vengeful, and greedy for gold but also a loyal friend, a shy lover, and a devoted father. He also reportedly had an especially large head, leading some to speculate that he had Paget’s disease.
Wikimedia CommonsEgill Skallagrímsson engaging in holmgang with Berg-Önundr by Johannes Flintoe (19th century).
As a young man he killed the son of King Eric Bloodaxe and placed a curse upon the king, which he inscribed on a pole in magic runes. Later, shipwrecked off the coast of Northumbria around 948, he fell into Eric’s hands but saved his own life by composing, in a single night, the long poem Höfuthlausn (“Head Ransom”), praising Eric in an end-rhyme meter:
“I praise the King
Throughout his land,
And keenly sing
His open hand,
His hand so free
With golden spoil:
But vice-like, he
Grips his own soil.”
Shortly after the death of two of his sons, Skallagrimsson locked himself in his enclosed bed and refused food. His daughter, however, coaxed him into writing a poem, so he composed the deeply personal lament Sonatorrek (“Loss of Sons”). The familiar saga recounts various tragedies, with Skallagrimsson expressing a desire for revenge and hatred toward Odin before he gradually bows in resignation and gratitude for the poetic gift the god bestowed him.
After finishing the poem, Egil Skallagrimsson resumed his normal life, living to be old and blind and writing a lament on his senility. He died in 990 at Mosfellsbær.
