Tímarit Þjóðræknisfélags Íslendinga - 01.01.1963, Page 103

anglo-saxon england and iceland
85
ty refer to Iceland. It may refer to
the Shetland Islands but this is of
httle consequence here. Ari and the
Icelanders of the twelfth century
helieved that Bede was speaking of
Iceland when he spoke of Thule. It
ls thus an attestation that among
the Icelanders it was believed that
the Anglo-Saxons were acquainted
With the existence of Iceland as
early as the eighth century, mis-
taken as this belief may have been.
As has been stated above, inter-
course between England and west-
ern Norway was a commonplace in
the ninth and tenth centuries. It is
n°t surprising that some Icelanders
ln addition to merchants shared in
this. This is particularly true of the
court poets who like the earlier
court poets mentioned in the An-
§lo-Saxon poem Widsith travelled
from court to court. Several are
juentioned in the Icelandic sagas.
he most famous of these is the
§reatest of the Viking poets, Egill
kallagrímsson, who entered the
Scrvice of King Athelstan and
°ught, as has been said, at Brun-
nanburh in 937.
Significant as was Egill’s service
under Athelstan yet his visit to Eric
oodaxe who was at the time King
0 Northumbria was more dramatic
and culturally more productive. The
Cllcumstances of this visit which
°°h place either ca. 940 or ca. 950
are obscure. Eric’s mother is said
0 have cast a spell on Egill which
w°iked on him so that he had no
Peace until he set out to visit Eric
^ 0 had sworn to kill him. When
gill reached England he was able
r°ugh the good offices of his
friend Arinbjörn, Eric’s chief coun-
cillor, to gain an audience with his
deadly royal enemy and was spared
for the time being. On the advice
of Arinbjörn he used the few hours
Eric had granted him to compose
an eulogy on Eric which was so well
received by the king that he grant-
ed Egill his head and the poem is
therefore know as Höfuðlausn or
Headransom.32
In Höfuðlausn Egill took the old
Eddic fornyrðislag (epic measure)
and fitted it with end rhymes a vari-
ation known as runhenf. This was
an innovation, one which was to be
copied widely. There may be some
doubt that Egill was much influ-
enced by English falconry, but there
is little question that in producing
this innovation Egill was influenced
by Anglo-Saxon poetry e.g. Cyne-
wulf’s Elene or the Riming Poem.
He had probably heard these or
other poems like them recited dur-
ing his earlier stay at the court of
Athelstan.33
Egill is not the only Icelandic
poet who serenaded English kings
whether of Norwegian or Anglo-
Saxon lineage. Gunnlaugr Orm-
stunga (Serpent’s tongue) composed
a lay in honour of Ethelred the
Unready. It is not surprising that
Egill’s Höfuðlausn would be easily
understood by Eric Bloodaxe and his
court. It is more difficult to believe
that there was no difficulty in com-
prehension when Grunnlaugr deliv-
ered his strophes before the throne
of Ethelred. There can be no doubt
that there was considerable differ-
ence between the “Danish” tongue
and written Anglo-Saxon, but there