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A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Gísla saga súrssonar, skaldic poetry, kennings, the settlement of Iceland,
the battle of Hafrsfjord
Gísla saga súrssonar (thirteenth century) is famous for the tragic destiny of its main
character, the Norwegian settler and outlaw Gísli Súrsson, a destiny that to some
extent is predicted by the many dream stanzas Gísli utters in the saga. In one of
these stanzas, Gísli refers to himself as Egða andspillir ‘confidant of the Egðir’, i.e.
the people of the Norwegian region of Agder. This kenning has puzzled skaldic
scholars and editors of Gísla saga, and no satisfactory explanation has so far been
proposed. In the present article, this kenning is explained as a við(r)kenning, that is,
a description in terms of a person’s attributes, which is based on factual knowledge
about the person involved. I evaluate the stanza as authentic, and so implying that
Gísli actually was the friend of people in Iceland in the tenth century who could
be called Egðir. I show that these Egðir most likely were members of the family
of Ingjaldr in Hergilsey, who according to the saga hid Gísli from his enemies for
three years, and whom Gísli mentions in one of his other stanzas. Landnámabók
tells us that Ingjaldr’s paternal grandfather came to Iceland from Agder together
with the chieftain Geirmundr heljarskinn, and that Geirmundr and his men had
to flee from Norway because of the new centralized rule of Haraldr hárfagri. The
story about Haraldr’s ofríki (‘harsh rule’) is probably exaggerated in the Icelandic
tradition, but there is support in the sources for the hypothesis that a retinue of
men who lost against Haraldr in the battle of Hafrsfjord (ca. 900) left Agder for
Iceland. The fact that Ingjaldr and his family could be considered Egðir two genera-
tions and more than sixty years after they had left Agder calls for an explanation.
Gí SLI Sú RSSON AS E G ð A A n D s P I L L I R