Egil's Saga

The story of Egil son of Grim the Bald (Skalla-Grim) is one of the prose works from medieval Iceland known as sagas, and of the major sagas it probably most closely approximates the image popularly associated with the word. The story is multi-generational. It features Viking adventures, and its primary hero is a devotee of Odin, god of kings, warriors, and poets. The hero's grandfather is rumored to be a werewolf, and the hero, himself both warrior and skald (poet), has thrilling encounters with berserkers and outlaws, and engages in a feud with a (perfectly historical) king, Eric Bloodaxe, whose wife (later the Queen-Mother) is a sorceress. Anyone expecting the hero to be a handsome Norseman from a storybook is going to be in for a shock, though. There are several such, including Egil's beloved brother, but, like some of his relatives, Egil himself is actually outstandingly ugly. And his behavior varies from the admirable to the repellent -- even in Viking-Age eyes. (An explanation for some of this has been proposed recently, pointing out stray details in the verse and prose that suggest a now-recognizable medical disorder, possibly genetic.) The work-a-day life of medieval Iceland, with law-suits arising from it, central to the majority of the Sagas of the Icelanders, shows up only at intervals, as the action ranges from the Arctic Circle to England, and the central North Atlantic to the eastern Baltic. "Egil's Saga" is thought by some to be the earliest of the "Sagas of the Icelanders," and is in some ways a good, although atypical, introduction to them. Egil's circle of friends, enemies (especially Queen-Mother Gunnhild), and family members (most notably his equally formidable, if much more attractive, daughter, Thorgerd) show up in other sagas, especially "Njal's Saga' and "Laxdaela Saga." Egil was counted as an ancestor by Snorri Sturluson, the author of the "Prose Edda," an explanation of myths, heroic legends and traditional verse forms, and of the "Heimskringla," a massive history of Norway through biographies of its kings. Snorri is one of the few Icelandic authors of the period whose name and attributed works both survive. The temptation to assign this saga to him is understandable, and has been championed by distinguished scholars. It doesn't seem to have been shared by the medieval scribes who transmitted the text. The theory was accepted by the first English translator of "Egil's Saga," W.C. Green, whose version of 1893 was (inevitably) based on an obsolete edition of the text. He rendered it into a rather stuffy, and prudish, modern English, despite the more elegant examples of Dasent's "Story of Burnt Njal" and the whole library of translations by William Morris and Eirikur Magnusson. The Reverend Green also could not resist moralizing over "good" and "bad" elements in Egil's character, in a way that would at best have amused the old pagan. (And misses the mark even more, if one accepts that the short-tempered Egil was in

The story of Egil son of Grim the Bald (Skalla-Grim) is one of the prose works from medieval Iceland known as sagas, and of the major sagas it probably most closely approximates the image popularly associated with the word. The story is multi-generational. It features Viking adventures, and its primary hero is a devotee of Odin, god of kings, warriors, and poets. The hero's grandfather is rumored to be a werewolf, and the hero, himself both warrior and skald (poet), has thrilling encounters with berserkers and outlaws, and engages in a feud with a king whose wife (later the Queen-Mother) is a sorceress. The work-a-day life of medieval Iceland, central to the majority of the Sagas of the Icelanders, shows up only at intervals, as the action ranges from the Arctic Circle to England, and the central North Atlantic to the eastern Baltic. The Penguin Classics translation by Palsson and Edwards has been a readily-available, highly-readable, version, for a quarter of a century, and, although it has some stiff competition (including the Fell and Lucas version in Everyman's Library, published a year or so earlier), is an excellent introduction to the saga. The first English translator of "Egil's Saga" was the Reverend W. C. Green, whose version of 1893 is available in several digital editions, and as a paperback from Kessinger. I have reviewed the Digireads edition, and commented there on its stylistic and other failings. Green attributed it to the famous Icelandic author Snorri Sturluson, mainly because he was alive at about the time it was written, was descended from Egil, and was a brilliant writer -- not unique characteristics among members of leading Icelandic families. More distinguished scholars have offered some better, but still inconclusive, arguments for the attribution. Green's version was followed in 1930 by a careful, elaborately annotated, translation by E.R. Eddison, whose fantasy novel "The Worm Ouroboros" and historical novel of Viking-Age Sweden, "Styrbiorn the Strong," had been published in the 1920s. Eddison's version, originally issued by Cambridge University Press, and reprinted by Greenwood in 1968, is occasionally available, and has many merits. Eddison was able to use an advance copy of Sigurdur Nordal's 1933 critical text, which was the scholarly standard into the 1980s. However, Eddison attempted to approximate the sounds and syntax of Old Norse with an English style using as many related words as possible, regardless of whether they were colloquial, or even current English. Since the sagas are notable for an unadorned prose, the concept of the translation was criticized by scholars who reviewed it at the time -- although they added that they found that the result was better than the theory. (So do I.) Eddison's versions of Egil's major poems are extremely impressive, and carefully annotated -- and need the explanations. Since the language of the skalds (the high-class poets of the medieval Scandinavian world) was esoteric a

Reader's who are looking for a blunt and quick moving saga should buy Egil's Saga right away. Egil, a Viking worthy of many stories, kills his first man when he's six years old. That's when you know a story is going to be filled with violence, when the main character kills at the ripe mature age of six. Egil's Saga is a plainly written, quick, and easy text, but you might want to keep this one away from the particularly young ones since there is an incredible amount of pretty graphic violence. This saga involves a man who is more than a man; he may have some disease that makes him enormous, with a deformed head and uncanny strength. This epic is about a child who is well beyond his years in speech and in strength, but is also an outcast from Icelandic society in large part because of his advancement but also because of his incredible ugliness. The saga is about his reckless adventures throughout Europe, ranging from wars in England where he becomes very good friends with the king, to Norway where he has been proclaimed an outcast. He ranges around northern Europe plundering, and growing as a human being. He is also an incredible poet, a natural, and his poetry comes in very useful when he gets in tough situations. The translated prose is very blunt, to the point, and delivered with little written emotion. Some of you readers out there will like the prose to be flowery, descriptive and have scenes where the drama and tension are built up by a lot of language. This is not the book for you. Chapters and sentences will describe the brutal killings of many men as if it were a sentence about picking daisies. However because of its blunt nature this is a fantastically fast-paced read and for those out there who are looking for a good book about plundering, murdering, revenge and a quickly unfolding plot then you're found the right book. However, when you pick up the book to read skip the introduction, or at least leave it until you've finished the text. Penguin, Hermann Palsson and Paul Edwards have done an excellent job translating but unfortunately they have put a horrible introduction to kick things off. If you're one of those people who loves to get their movies ruined or books spoiled by your best friends then by all means read the introduction. But if you want there to be some suspense in the literature you read and don't want to know exactly everything that happens in the text please, do yourself a giant favor and skip over the introduction and go straight to the actual text. Then once you've finished you can look back at the introduction (if you'd like) which has some interesting points about genealogy, when the text was written, who the author is thought to be, what culture was like around Egil's time, and what culture was like when Egil's Saga was being recounted. All in all I enjoyed Egil's Saga a lot and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who's looking for adventure. Egil's Saga is thought to be written by Snorri Sturluso

This saga examines four generations of a redoubtable Icelandic family of warrior poets thought to be descended from trolls, beginning with Kveldulf in the first generation; Skallagrim, in the second; Egil, in the third; and finally petering out with Thorstein, who is content to be a mere farmer. They are (frequently) outlawed by the powerful kings of Norway, whom they help but whose jealousy clouds their judgment. They let no man stand in their way, and are formidable even in fights at long odds. Egil Skallagrimsson, in particular, comes across as a force of nature. We see him in action across Scandinavia, in England where he fights with King Athelstan, and as far afield as the Baltic countries. His poetry, of which there are numerous examples in the saga, are interesting -- yet come from a tradition that is alien to ours, probably much closer to BEOWULF than any other English equivalent. Unlike so many other saga heroes, Egil dies a natural death, living long enough to lose his strength and be bossed about by servant women. Yet his poetic vision remains to the end: Life fades, I must fall And face my own end Not in misery and mourning But with a man's heart. This is one of the five major Icelandic "family" sagas, along with NJALS SAGA, LAXDAELA SAGA, GRETTIR'S SAGA, and EYRBYGGJA SAGA. It may be the best of them all (though I have yet to read GRETTIR'S SAGA at this time). In that distant island so far from the harshness of Dark Ages Europe, a major literature was born that is dramatically different from anything else I have encountered, and that has the ability to move me as few things have.

Egil Skallagrimmson is one of the great neglected characters of all time. Poet, magician, politician, good guy, bad guy, warrior--Egil is one of the more interesting characters that you'll ever read about. It's too bad that he's known mainly to fans of Icelandic sagas. If you're only going to read one Icelandic saga in your lifetime, choose this one.