Tímarit Þjóðræknisfélags Íslendinga - 01.01.1967, Page 56

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TÍMARIT ÞJÓÐRÆKNISFÉLAGS ÍSLENDINGA
and his foul mood at the home of
the King’s steward (Bárðr), where
Egill for the first time met his
arch-foe King Eiríkr B 1 o o d a x e
and came face to face with his
young and no doubt ‘charming’
queen, the “sorceress” Gunnhildr
who was to become Egill’s most
formidable opponent for ever after.
Egill believed that Gunnhildr and
her steward, Bárðr, conspired to
brew him poison, but he cut runes
on the drinking horn which there-
upon burst and spilt the .poison.
Having done this Egill killed the
steward Bárðr and fled. He tells this
story himself in stanzas 8-10 in
Egils saga, stanza 10 is technically
a masterpiece with its recurring
inrime (dunhent) and the har-
monious metaphor style of its kenn-
ings: he speaks of letting the drizzle
of the drinking-horn s h o w e r
through his beard. (Atgeira lætk
ýrar ýring of grön skýra).
That Egill escaped from this
scrape was due to the intercession
of a man who became his life-long
friend, Arinbjörn Þórisson, a cousin
of Ásgerðr, and a most loyal sup-
porter of King Eríkr. But after this
initial tussle with the King, the
brothers, Egill and Þórólfr, realized
that they had better not come back
to Norway; this became especially
clear to them after they had also
killed another henchman of Gunn-
hildr’s. They went, instead, to King
Athelstan of England and fought
with him the battle of Vínheiðr (or
Brunaburg) in 937. Here Þórólfr lost
his life, and when Egill returned
to King Athelstan’s court his mind
wss filled with a mixture of rage
and sorrow. It is quite in order to
quote the saga on1 this memorable
meeting. Its account runs as follows:
“Having buried his brother, Egill
went with his company to meet
King Athelstan and found him sitt-
ing and drinking, his men1 having
a good time. And when the King
saw that Egill had arrived, he
ordered that room should be made
for him and his men on the lower
bench, and that Egill should sit
there in the highseat over against
the King.
Egill sat down and shot down his
shield before his feet; he had a helm
on his head and laid his sword
across his knees, now drawing it
half out, now slamming it back into
the scabbard. He sat bolt upright,
but with bent head. Egill had a big
face, broad forehead, and great eye-
brows; the nose was not long but
exceedingly thick, the place of the
beard long and wide, the chin
marvelously broad and the jaws
likewise. He was thicknecked and
broad-shouldered beyond measure;
hard-looking and grim-like when-
ever angry. He was well built and
taller than most men, the hair was
wolf-grey and thick, but early in
life he turned bald.
And as Egill sat there, he kept
a-twitching now one, now the other
of his eye-brows alternately down to
his cheek or up to his hair. Egill was
black-eyed; his eye-brows joining
over his nose. He would drink noth-
ing though drink was borne to hir°
but sat there twitching his eye'
brows one after the other up and
down.
King Athelstan sat in the high'