by E R Eddison
11 FEE (fé). Fé in Icel. is used indifferently of (a) cattle (in Iceland chiefly sheep), (b) wealth and goods in general, (c) money. ‘Fee’ in Old English has precisely these three meanings. I have rendered fé with ‘fee’ (which poets and the border ballads have made familiar in the vague sense of wealth, whether in money or goods) everywhere, except where the Icel. clearly meant cattle: in that sense the English word is dead past saving, and would sound awkward.
CHAPTER II
1 HIS EARL (jarl). See note.
2 THE EARL’S SON THORIR. The first mention of Thorir the Hersir, a staunch friend of Kveldulf’s family, and the father of Arinbiorn the Hersir, Egil’s dear and lifelong friend.
3 EARL ATLI THE SLENDER and his sons were, according to Landn., the proximate cause of a momentous event—the first settlement by the Norsemen in Iceland. The three brethren were messmates with Ingolf Arnarson and Hiorleif his fosterbrother, until at a feast one autumn Holmstein made a strong vow that he would have to wife Ingolf’s sister Helga, “or no woman else”. Hiorleif misliked this; quarrels followed, in which first Holmstein and then Herstein were slain; and in the end Ingolf and Hiorleif had to give up their estates in Norway to Earl Atli as atonement for his sons. Then “those fosterbrothers made ready a great ship and fared to seek that land which Hrafn-Floki had found, which then was called Iceland” (Landn. 6).
4 AUTUMN-SACRIFICE (haustblót). By ordainment of Odin, “Folk were to hold sacrifice against the coming of winter for a good year; in midwinter for the growth of the earth; and a third in the summer that was an offering for gain and victory” (Yngl. 8). The feasts of blood-offering (blótveizlur) in Thrandheim in the days of K. Hakon Athelstane’s-fosterling are thus described in his Saga: “It was the olden custom that when a blood-offering should be, all the bonders should come to the place where was the Temple, bringing with them all the victuals they had need of while the feast should last; and at that feast should all men have ale with them. There also was slain cattle of every kind, and horses withal; and all the blood that came from them was called Hlaut, but hlaut-bowls were they called wherein the blood stood, and the hlaut-tein a rod made in the fashion of a sprinkler. With all the hlaut should the stalls of the Gods be reddened, and the walls of the temple within and without, and the men-folk also besprinkled, but the flesh was to be sodden for the feasting of men. Fires were to be made in the midst of the floor of the temple, with caldrons thereover, and the health-cups should be borne over the fire. But he who made the feast and was the lord thereof should sign the cups and all the meat; and first should be drunken Odin’s cup for the victory and dominion of the king, and then the cup of Niord and the cup of Frey for plentiful seasons and peace. Thereafter were many men wont to drink the Bragi-cup; and men drank also a cup to their kinsmen dead who had been noble, and that was called the cup of Memory” (Hak. 16). See also the account of Thor’s temple at Thorsness in Iceland (Eb. 4). The editors of C.P.B. are probably right in regarding reference to idols as late interpolations based not on historic fact but on monkish fictions (C.P.B. vol. I, p. 401 ff.). Human sacrifices were not unknown but apparently very rare in the saga-time.
CHAPTER III
1 HARALD. Harald Hairfair (Haraldr Hárfagri). For a fuller account of the life of this great King, see his own saga (Hkr.). He took kingdom after his father in 860 at the age of ten, in the little realm of Westfold, east in the Wick (that part of Norway that surrounds the Oslofirth). It is told that he wooed a maiden “exceeding fair, and withal somewhat high-minded”, who gave him this answer: “I will not waste my maidenhood for the taking to husband of a king who has no more realm to rule over than a few Folks. But that seems to me wonderful”, she says, “that there be no king who will so make Norway his own and be sole lord over it, like as hath King Gorm in Denmark, or Eric in Upsala”. Harald thereupon swore an oath never to let cut his hair or comb it till he should be sole King over all Norway. That oath he performed with the help of his mother’s brother, Duke Gutthorm, and married the lady.* And when he had gotten to him all the land, “King Harald took a bath and then he let his hair be combed, and then Earl Rognvald sheared it. And heretofore it had been unshorn and uncombed for ten winters. Aforetime he had been called Shockhead [Lúfa], but now Earl Rognvald gave him a by-name, and called him Harald Hairfair, and all said who saw him that that was most soothly named, for he had both plenteous hair and goodly” (Har. Hfr. 23).
The best and shortest account that I have seen of Harald’s policy and achievements is in the first dozen pages of ch. II of G. Gathorne Hardy’s Norway (Ernest Benn, 1925).
2 THRANDHEIM (Þrándheimr). The countryside of the Trondhjem Fjord, divided into Outer and Inner Thrandheim, and again into eight folklands, viz. Orkdale, Skaun, Gauldale, Strind, Islesfolk, Spareby, Verdale and Stiordale. An open and fertile country, it was an early cradle of civilization, and later centred round the temple and seat of the great Earls of Hladir and, after Olaf Tryggvison’s days, round his new town of Nidoyce (Niðaróss), a little further N.W., which is to-day (or rather was till yesterday) Trondhjem.
3 TUMBLED HIMSELF OUT OF KINGDOM (veltiz ór konungdómi). Literally, it seems: cf. the fuller account in Har. Hfr. 8 of this singular procedure: “King Hrollaug went on the top of the howe whereon the kings were wont to sit, and let array the kingly high-seat, and sat down therein; then he let lay pillows on the footpace whereon the earls were wont to sit, and tumbled himself down from the high-seat on to the earl’s seat, and gave himself the name of earl”.
4 THRALLS (þræll). Thralls were slaves: personal chattels, without the privileges of free men: probably as a rule outlanders, taken by war; cf. the references to Irish thralls passim. They were worked hard; cf. Eb. 37, “Arnkel was a great man for work, and made his thralls work all day from sunrise to sunset”. The great Erling Skialgson of Soli treated his thralls with kindness and consideration, a fact which is set forth at length as something noteworthy and strange (O.H. 22). Hiorleif, the landnama-man, was murdered by his thralls, apparently because he overworked them: “he had but one ox, and he let the thralls drag the plough” (Landn. 8). Thrall became a term of obloquy: ‘a servile, mean fellow’, and then ‘a cruel, wicked wretch’ (D. s.v.). Cf. the story in Hkr. (Hak. 13) of King Eystein the Evil, who in his oppression bade the Thrandheimers choose whether they would have for king over them his thrall or his hound.
5 THEM THAT SHOW SOMEWHAT OF FREE-BOARD IN THEIR SAILING, AND WILL BE MEN OF VALOUR (þeim er nökkurir eru borði ok kappsmenn vilja vera). Meaning, of course, that they have some self-respect and pride. Here, as often, the Icel. is unapproachable in terseness.
6 LET SHEAR UP THE WAR-ARROW (lét skera upp herör). Magnússon (Hkr. IV, 476) says it was of iron for circulation on the king’s highways, but of wood for conveyance along by-ways; symbolical of the speed to be used in obeying the call to arms (D. p. 71): “In Iceland…. a small wooden axe is still sent from farm to farm to summon people to the mantal-thing in the spring” (ibid.). Cf. the fiery cross of the Scottish clans.
7 LUCK (hamingja). Cf. also p. 208. The Icel. has properly a personal sense, of a guardian spirit. The hamingja at the hour of death left the dying person and passed into a dear son, daughter, etc. (D. s.v.): cf. Glum. 9, where Glum dreams “that he saw a woman walk inland up the countryside, and held thitherward, toward Thvera; but she was so great that her shoulders took even with the fells on either side. But it seemed to him that he walked out of the garth to meet her, and bade her to him. And therewithal waked he. All thought it wonderful, but he saith as thus: ‘’Tis a great dream and a notable, but so will I read it: that Vigfus, my mother’s father, will now be dead, and that woman would be his luck, which walked higher than the fells. Ay, and was he before other men in most things as to worth, and his luck will be seeking her an abiding place thither where I am’. But in the summer, when ships came out, was brought tidings of the death of Vigfus”.
The ancient mystical poem Vafþrúðnismál has a curious passage which seems to mean that as the Nor
ns are to the ultimate power so are hamingjar to men on earth (C.P.B. vol. I, pp. 68, 479).
CHAPTER IV
1 HAKON THE EARL OF HLADIR. Grandfather of the great Earl Hakon, on whom see note.
2 EARL ROGNVALD. Called Rögnvaldr Mœrajarl (the Mere-Earl); a beloved friend of King Harald, and father of Rolf the Ganger, Duke of Normandy. He was at last burnt in his house by sons of Harald, jealous that the King gave them no rule; a misdeed that was horribly avenged on one of the princes by the Earl’s son, Turf-Einar, Earl of the Orkneys (Har. Hfr. 30, 31).
3 SKALD (skáld). A poet. See note.
4 ODAL RIGHTS (óðul). Under the original Norse principle of ‘odal’, the family was the owner of the land, which was inalienable. Later, the odal system was modified, and only gave members of the family a prior right of purchase or redemption of land which had been sold out of the family. Some authorities have contended that Harald Hairfair did not in fact take away the odal or make men pay land-tax; that what he did was merely to levy a personal tax on freeholders. But this, besides going against the written evidence (Hkr., Ld., and our own Saga), could hardly account for the bitterness aroused by Harald’s policy. Gathorne Hardy’s examination leads him to conclude that the sagas are right and that ‘Harald’s policy may be summed up in the words, he applied for the first time in Norway methods already in existence for dealing with a subjugated people in foreign lands’ (op. cit. p. 40).
5 WAS FOUND ICELAND (fannz Ísland). When and by whom is not exactly known. The honour lies between Gardar, a Swede, who on his return “praised the land much and called it ‘Gardarsholm’”, and Naddod the Viking, presumably a Norseman, who also “praised it much”, but called it ‘Snowland’. The two extant versions of Landn. differ on the question who was first. Then Floki, ‘a great viking’, set sail from Rogaland to seek Snowland. He sailed by Shetland to the Faereys, and “Thence sailed he out into the deep with those three ravens that he had hallowed in Norway. And when he let loose the first, that one flew back over the stem: the second flew up into the sky and back to the ship: the third flew forth over the stem into that airt where they found the land”. Floki called it ‘Iceland’ (Landn. 5). None of these stayed long in the new country. Nattfari, a shipmate of Gardar’s, was accidentally left behind near Skialfandi Firth and seems to have settled there, but was driven away by a later comer (ibid. 294). It is however explicitly stated that Ingolf Arnarson was the first settler, bygði fyrst landit. See note, p. 258 on ‘Ingolf.
CHAPTER V
1 SOLDIERLY (garpligr). Garpr, like skörungr, is a heart-breaking word for the translator. It means something like a ‘hero’, but the word is homely, not magniloquent. Hvat man garprinn vilja? says Hrafnkel Frey’s-priest when his horse Freyfaxi gallops home all mud and dirt: ‘What does my bully want?’ Two English ladies who a few years ago walked alone through Iceland, with a single horse to take their baggage, were admiringly called the Göngu-garpar, ‘the walking garps’ Reykdœla 1 ends with the statement that that enfant terrible Vemund Kogur died of a sickness, “and yet men thought him the greatest garpr while he was alive”. Our English stock of synonyms are all too much soaked in moral sentiment to fit the clean-cut objectivity and strength of the Icelandic word.
2 COME AND SEE YOU (á fund yðvarn). ‘You’, 2nd per. pl., is generally used out of respect in speaking to the King, instead of the familiar ‘thou’ (þú); a practice found in many languages, including, at one time, English. The two forms (respectful plural and everyday singular) are often jumbled together in the same speech or even sentence, as the reader will observe passim from my translation. The same jumbling is frequent in Elizabethan English. Our modern idiom has turned heels in air, and while it accords the old formal ‘you’ to every mortal, man or beast, is content to tutoyer the Deity.
3 THAT WE, FATHER AND SONS, WILL GET NO LUCK WITH THIS KING. The first rumbling of the approaching tragedy.
CHAPTER VI
1 BODYGUARD (hirð). The ‘King’s men’ or court in ancient times, kept by kings, earls, and other great men.
CHAPTER VII
1 The importance of this chapter to the main action will appear in the sequel (end of ch. IX, ch. XII ff.). In old Biorgolf’s ‘loose bridal’ with Hildirid ill seed was sown, and an ill crop was to come of it.
2 BANQUET (gildi). There is no appreciable difference between gildi and boð, ‘bidding’. Gildi originally, and rarely, had the sense of ‘payment’ (cf. weregild); meaning ‘banquet’, it is frequent in old poetry. Possibly this meaning arose from feasts to which each guest brought his own ‘gild’ or contribution. Later it meant ‘guild’ in the sense of a brotherhood or trades union: King Olaf the Quiet (1066–93) established the ‘Great Gild’ in Nidoyce ‘and many others in cheaping-steads, but before there were turn-about drinkings (hvirfings-drykkjur)’: Hkr. Saga of Olaf the Quiet, ch. 2.
3 Two AND TWO (tvímenningr). To drink einmenningr meant you must ‘floor the sconce’ without assistance, instead of (as here) have a partner to help you. Cf. chs. XLVIII and LXXI.
4 CUTTER (skúta). See note on ‘Long-ship’.
5 HALL (stofa). The homestead in the saga-time comprised a whole group of buildings of which the stofa was the chief. It was both sitting-room and dining-room, and served also as a guest-chamber both for sleeping in and for feasting. See Magnússon’s full and admirable note on ‘House’, Hkr. IV, 353–63) especially pp. 356–8.
6 STRONG BEER (mungát). That which ‘contents the heart’. Öl and mungát seem to be synonymous, whereas bjórr and mungát are distinguished (D. s.v.).
7 HILDIRID …BARE ALE TO THE GUESTS. High-born ladies waited upon their guests as a matter of honour, just as they do in Iceland to-day. Instances occur passim in the sagas; cf. Bergthora’s carrying round water to wash her guests’ hands, Nj. 35; and, in legendary days, Hildigunna, daughter of King Granmar, bearing ale to the vikings, Yngl. 41.
8 A LOOSE BRIDAL (lausabrullaup). The ‘looseness’ of this ceremony was sufficient to impair the legitimacy of the children. See here.
9 AN OUNCE OF GOLD. The ounce (eyrir) is one-eighth of the mark (mörk). Dasent has a long note on money values in the saga-time (Nj. vol. II, p. 397 ff.). It is not generally realized how common, comparatively speaking, gold and silver were in the viking days: the ‘fee’ brought home by men of account from their summer harryings included luxuries and costly treasures of all kinds, and their fondness for magnificence is illustrated by countless instances in the sagas and by the constant reference in skaldic verse to the ‘gold-scattering’, ‘ring-breaking’ and ‘treasure-flinging’ propensities proper to a great man.
10 CALLED THE SONS OF HILDIRID. In the same way Egil’s friend Thorstein Ericson (p. 148) was, when his father died, called Thorason, after his mother. Cf. Ld. 57: “Therefore was he called after his mother, because she lived longer than his father”. Also cf. the case of the sons of the lady Fjorleif in Reykdæla, Vemund Kogur and his brothers. It was the common rule.
11 FINN-FARE AND FINN-SCAT (finnferð ok finnskat). I.e. the right of journeying into Finnmark (mod. Lapland) and trading with the Finns and collecting the scat (i.e. tribute) from them on the King’s behalf. This seems to have been a royal monopoly, which before Harald Hairfair’s days was held presumably by the kings of Halogaland.
CHAPTER VIII
1 THE KING’S STEWARDSHIP ON THE FELL (konungssýsla a fjalli). Explanatory of, and in apposition to, ‘Finn-fare’ (F.J.).
2 SKALDS. For the position of court-poets in Norway (who were after Harald Hairfair’s time mainly Icelanders), see the note in Hkr. IV, 407–8, and references there quoted. Skalds were held in high esteem by their lords, for it was by their praise-songs that a king’s fame was bruited abroad and the memory of his deeds handed down. They were men of action, often violent and overweening, like Egil, Gunnlaug the Wormtongue, Hrafn, Holmgang-Bersi, Kormak, Thor-mod Coalbrowskald, Hallfred the Troublous-skald and others. But Magnússon (Hkr. loc. cit.) well says that” The problem their art had to
solve was, how to leave historical truth unobscured by professional eulogy, how to be true to this principle and dutiful to their patron at the same time. The school they had to go through for the solution of this problem created them a class of independent, free-spoken, justice-loving men, influencing, when they have the opportunity, the king invariably in favour of justice and humanity”.
3 THORBIORN HORNKLOFI. A famous skald of King Harald’s, whose ‘Glym-Drapa’ and ‘Raven-song’ have come down to us, though incomplete and corrupt.
4 SNAKE-SHIP (snekkja). See note on ‘Long-ship’.
5 From this speech of Oliver’s, and from many other examples, we gather the proper tone and attitude to be adopted in addressing the King. He must be approached as a wilful, and rather stupid, child, never forgetting, however, that he is a very dangerous child (as Skalla-grim was to find, very nearly to his cost, some years later, ch. XXV).
6 MANÝ NOBLE KINSFOLK OF HIS. Both Bard and Thorolf were descended from Wolf the Fearless, the grandfather of Ketil Haeng of Hrafnista.
7 KINSMEN OF THEIRS BY BLOOD AND AFFINITY (frændr sína ok tengðamenn). The old word for ‘connexion’ as opposed to blood-relation was sif, ‘sib’ (’gossip’ = god-sib).
8 A MIGHTY LORD (höfðingi mikill). Lit. a ‘headman’. Icel. does not possess the English word ‘lord’ (A.S. hlaford).
CHAPTER IX
1 IN THE STEM (stafn). Or ‘prow’. “Stafn seems to include the extreme space in the fore of a ship, when it does not signify the prow looked at from the outside” (Hkr. IV, 444). The stafnbúar were picked fighting men who bore the brunt of the fighting in a sea-battle (ibid. 448).
2 HAFRSFIRTH (Hafrsfjörðr). The generally accepted date for this decisive battle is 872, when King Harald was about 22 years old. For a slightly fuller account of Hafrsfirth see Har. Hfr. 19.
3 THOSE THAT IRON BIT NOT. Cf. Egil’s difficulties with Atli the Short (ch. LXV). Also the case of Aslak Rockskull when he boarded Earl Eric’s ship Ironbeak in the battle of the Jomsburg vikings against Earl Hakon: “Aslak was a bald man, by what is said, and yet hath he no helm on his head that day but battleth on with his bare pate. And ‘tis clear sky and good weather and warm, and many men do off their clothes and have nought but their war-clothes only, for the heat sake. Now eggeth on Eric his folk against them, and now hew men at Aslak and upon his head both with swords and axes, and the blows fly off his pate like smoke and bite not on it. And this see they now, that he goeth hard forward, whatsoever be before him, and cleareth him his way; heweth ever on either hand. That is said, that Vigfus, Slaying Glum’s son, took that rede that he grabbeth up a great anvil that lay there and driveth the neb of it into Aslak’s head; and with that had he nought to answer, but the anvil’s neb sinketh in his pate so that it stood in his brain, and he straightway fell down dead” (Flateyjarbók; Ólafs Saga Tryggvasonar, ch. 153). Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy informs us that witches can make “stick-free’s, such as shall endure a rapier’s point, or musket shot and neu’r be wounded”.
