The Sagas of the Icelanders (19 page)

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Eirik Blood-axe came to power and ruled Hordaland and Fjordane. He took men into his service and kept them with him.

One spring Eirik Blood-axe made preparations for a journey to Permia and chose his men carefully for the expedition. Thorolf joined Eirik and served as his standard-bearer at the prow of his ship. Just like his father had been, Thorolf was outstandingly large and strong.

Many things of note took place on that journey. Eirik fought a great battle by the river Dvina in Permia and emerged the victor, as the poems about him relate; and on the same journey he married Gunnhild, daughter of Ozur Snout, and brought her back home with him. Gunnhild was outstandingly attractive and wise, and well versed in the magic arts. Thorolf and Gunnhild struck up a close friendship. Thorolf would spend the winters with Eirik, and go on Viking raids in the summer.

The next thing that happened was that Bjorn’s wife, Thora, fell ill and died. A short time later Bjorn took another wife, Olof, daughter of Erling the Wealthy from Ostero. Bjorn and Olof had a daughter called Gunnhild.

There was a man called Thorgeir Thorn-foot who lived at Fenring in Hordaland, at the place called Ask. He had three sons; one was named Hadd, another Berg-Onund, and the third Atli the Short. Berg-Onund was uncommonly strong, pushy and troublesome. Atli was short, squarely built and powerful. Thorgeir was very wealthy, made many sacrifices to the gods and was well versed in the magic arts. Hadd went on Viking raids and was rarely at home.

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One summer, Thorolf Skallagrimsson made ready to go trading. He planned to go to Iceland and see his father, and did so. He had been away for a long time, and took a great amount of wealth and many precious things with him.

When he was ready to leave, he went to see King Eirik. At their parting,
Eirik presented Thorolf with an axe, saying he wanted Skallagrim to have it. The axe was crescent-shaped, large and inlaid with gold, and its hilt was plated with silver, a splendid piece of work.

Thorolf set off when his ship was ready, and he had a smooth journey, arriving in Borgarfjord where he went straight to his father’s house. It was a joyful reunion. Skallagrim went with Thorolf to the ship and had it brought ashore, then Thorolf and eleven of his men went to Borg.

When he was in Skallagrim’s house he passed on King Eirik’s greeting and presented him with the axe that the king had sent. Skallagrim took the axe, held it up and inspected it for a while without speaking, then hung it up above his bed.

At Borg one day in the autumn, Skallagrim had a large number of oxen driven to his farm to be slaughtered. He had two of them tethered up against the wall, with their heads together, and took a large slab of rock and placed it under their necks. Then he went up to them with his axe King’s Gift and struck one blow at both oxen. It chopped off their heads, but it went right through and struck the stone, and the mount broke completely and the blade shattered. Skallagrim inspected the edge without saying a word, then went into the fire-room, climbed up on a bench and put the axe on the rafters above the door, where it was left that winter.

In the spring, Thorolf announced that he planned to go abroad that summer.

Skallagrim tried to discourage him, reminding him that ‘“it is better to ride a whole wagon home”. Certainly you have made an illustrious journey,’ he said, ‘but there’s a saying, “the more journeys you make, the more directions they take”. You can have as much wealth from here as you think you need to show your stature.’

Thorolf replied that he still wanted to make a journey, ‘and I have some pressing reasons for going. When I come to Iceland for a second time, I will settle down here. Asgerd, your foster-daughter, will go with me to meet her father. He asked me to arrange this when I was leaving Norway.’

Skallagrim said it was up to him to decide, ‘but I have an intuition that if we part now we will never meet again’.

Then Thorolf went to his ship and made it ready. When he was fully prepared, they moved the ship out to Digranes and lay there waiting for a favourable wind. Asgerd went on the ship with him.

Before Thorolf left Borg, Skallagrim went up and took down the axe, the
gift from the king, from the rafters above the door. The handle was black with soot and the axe had gone rusty. Skallagrim inspected the edge, then handed it to Thorolf, speaking this verse:

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One summer while Thorolf was abroad and Skallagrim lived at Borg, a trading ship arrived in Borgarfjord from Norway. Trading ships would be given shore-berths then in many places: in rivers or the mouths of streams, or in channels. There was a man named Ketil, whose nickname was Ketil Blund (Snooze), who owned the ship. He was a Norwegian, of a great family and wealthy. His son, Geir, had come of age by then and was on the ship with him. Ketil intended to settle in Iceland; he arrived late in the summer. Skallagrim knew all about his background, and invited Ketil to stay with him, together with all his travelling companions. Ketil accepted the offer, and spent the winter with Skallagrim.

That winter, Ketil’s son Geir asked for the hand of Thorunn, Skallagrim’s daughter, and the match was settled; he married her. The following spring Skallagrim offered Ketil some land to settle on up from where Oleif had settled, along the river Hvita between the Flokadal and Reykjadal estuaries and all the tongue of land between them as far as Raudsgil, and all the head of Flokadal valley. Ketil lived at Thrandarholt, while Geir lived at Geirshlid and had another farm at Upper Reykir; he was called Geir the Wealthy. His sons were named Blund-Ketil, Thorgeir Blund and Thorodd Hrisablund, who lived at Hrisar.

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Skallagrim took a great delight in trials of strength and games, and liked talking about them. Ball games were common in those days, and there were plenty of strong men in the district at this time. None of them could match Skallagrim in strength, even though he was fairly advanced in age by then.

Thord, Grani’s son from Granastadir, was a promising young man, and was very fond of Egil Skallagrimsson. Egil was a keen wrestler; he was impetuous and quick-tempered, and everyone was aware that they had to teach their sons to give in to him.

A ball game was arranged early in winter on the plains by the river Hvita, and crowds of people came to it from all over the district. Many of Skallagrim’s men attended, and Thord Granason was their leader. Egil asked Thord if he could go to the game with him; he was in his seventh year then. Thord let him, and seated Egil behind him when he rode there.

When they reached the games meeting, the players were divided up into teams. A lot of small boys were there as well, and they formed teams to play their own games.

Egil was paired against a boy called Grim, the son of Hegg from Heggsstadir. Grim was ten or eleven years old, and strong for his age. When they started playing the game, Egil proved to be weaker than Grim, who showed off his strength as much as he could. Egil lost his temper, wielded the bat and struck Grim, who seized him and dashed him to the ground roughly, warning him that he would suffer for it if he did not learn how to behave. When Egil got back on his feet he left the game, and the boys jeered at him.

Egil went to see Thord Granason and told him what had happened.

Thord said, ‘I’ll go with you and we’ll take our revenge.’

Thord handed Egil an axe he had been holding, a common type of weapon in those days. They walked over to where the boys were playing their game. Grim had caught the ball and was running with the other boys chasing him. Egil ran up to Grim and drove the axe into his head, right through to the brain. Then Egil and Thord walked away to their people. The people from Myrar seized their weapons, and so did the others. Oleif Hjalti rushed to join the people from Borg with his men. Theirs was a much larger group, and at that the two sides parted.

As a result, a quarrel developed between Oleif and Hegg. They fought a battle at Laxfit by the river Grimsa, where seven men were killed. Hegg received a fatal wound and his brother Kvig died in the battle.

When Egil returned home, Skallagrim seemed indifferent to what had happened, but Bera said he had the makings of a true Viking when he was old enough to be put in command of warships. Then Egil spoke this verse:

When Egil was twelve, he was so big that few grown men were big and strong enough that he could not beat them at games. In the year that he was twelve, he spent a lot of time taking part in games. Thord Granason was in his twentieth year then, and strong too. That winter Egil and Thord often took sides together in games against Skallagrim.

Once during the winter there was a ball game at Borg, in Sandvik to the south. Egil and Thord played against Skallagrim, who grew tired and they came off better. But that evening after sunset, Egil and Thord began losing. Skallagrim was filled with such strength that he seized Thord and dashed him to the ground so fiercely that he was crushed by the blow and died on the spot. Then he seized Egil.

Skallagrim had a servant woman named Thorgerd Brak, who had fostered Egil when he was a child. She was an imposing woman, as strong as a man and well versed in the magic arts.

Brak said, ‘You’re attacking your own son like a mad beast, Skallagrim.’

Skallagrim let Egil go, but went for her instead. She fled, with Skallagrim in pursuit. They came to the shore at the end of Digranes, and she ran off the edge of the cliff and swam away. Skallagrim threw a huge boulder after her which struck her between the shoulder blades. Neither the woman nor the boulder ever came up afterwards. That spot is now called Brakarsund (Brak’s Sound).

Later that evening, when they returned to Borg, Egil was furious. By the time Skallagrim and the other members of the household sat down at the table, Egil had not come to his seat. Then he walked into the room and went over to Skallagrim’s favourite, a man who was in charge of the workers and ran the farm with him. Egil killed him with a single blow, then went to his seat. Skallagrim did not mention the matter and it was let rest afterwards, but father and son did not speak to each other, neither kind nor unkind words, and so it remained through the winter.

The next summer Thorolf returned, as was recounted earlier. After spending the winter in Iceland, he prepared his ship in Brakarsund in the spring.

One day when Thorolf was on the point of setting sail, Egil went to see his father and asked him to equip him for a journey.

‘I want to go abroad with Thorolf,’ he said.

Skallagrim asked if he had discussed the matter with Thorolf. Egil said he had not, so Skallagrim told him to do so first of all.

When Egil raised the subject, Thorolf said there was no chance that ‘I would take you away with me. If your own father doesn’t feel he can manage you in his house, I can’t feel confident about taking you abroad with me, because you won’t get away with acting there the way you do here.’

‘In that case,’ said Egil, ‘perhaps neither of us will go.’

That night, a fierce storm broke out, a south-westerly gale. When it was dark and the tide was at its highest, Egil went down to where the ship lay, went aboard and walked around the awnings. He chopped through all the anchor ropes on the seaward side of the ship. Then he rushed to the gangway, pushed it out to sea and cut the moorings fastening the ship to land. The ship drifted out into the fjord. When Thorolf and his men realized that the ship was adrift, they jumped in a boat, but it was much too windy for them to be able to do anything. The ship drifted over to Andakil and on to the spits there, while Egil went back to Borg.

When it became known, most people condemned the trick that Egil had played. But he answered that he would not hesitate to cause Thorolf more trouble and damage if he refused to take him away. Other people intervened in their quarrel, and in the end Thorolf took Egil abroad with him that summer.

On reaching his ship, Thorolf took the axe that Skallagrim had given to him, and threw it overboard into deep water, so that it never came up again.

Thorolf set off that summer and had a smooth passage, making land at Hordaland and heading north to Sognefjord. There, they heard the news that Brynjolf had died from an illness during the winter, and that his sons had shared out his inheritance among them. Thord had taken Aurland, the farm where his father had lived. He had sworn allegiance to the king and taken charge of his lands on his behalf.

Thord had a daughter named Rannveig, whose children were Thord and Helgi. Thord the younger also had a daughter named Rannveig, the mother of Ingirid whom King Olaf married. Helgi’s son was Brynjolf, the father of Serk from Sognefjord and Svein.

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Bjorn received another farm, a good and valuable one, and because he did not swear allegiance to the king, people called him Bjorn the Landowner. He was a man of considerable wealth and power.

After Thorolf landed, he went straight to see Bjorn, bringing his daughter Asgerd to the house with him. It was a joyful reunion. Asgerd was a fine and accomplished woman, wise and knowledgeable.

Thorolf went to see King Eirik. When they met, Thorolf delivered a greeting to him from Skallagrim, saying that he had been grateful for the gift the king had sent him, and presented him with a longship sail that he told him Skallagrim had sent. King Eirik was pleased with the gift, and asked Thorolf to stay with him for the winter.

Thorolf thanked the king for his offer, ‘but I must go and see Thorir first. I have some pressing business to attend to with him.’

Then Thorolf went to see Thorir as he had said, and was warmly received there. Thorir asked Thorolf to stay with him.

Thorolf told him he would accept the offer: ‘And there is a man with me who will stay wherever I do. He is my brother and has never been away from home before, so he needs me to keep an eye on him.’

Thorir said that Thorolf was free to have more men with him if he wanted – ‘We regard it as an asset to have your brother, if he’s anything like you.’

Thorolf went to his ship and had it pulled ashore and taken care of, then he and Egil went to stay with Thorir.

Thorir had a son named Arinbjorn, who was somewhat older than Egil. Arinbjorn was already an assertive character at an early age, and highly accomplished. Egil sought Arinbjorn’s friendship and followed him around everywhere, but relations between the two brothers Thorolf and Egil were rather strained.