Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 2020, Síða 329

The greater confidence we now may have in the authenticity of the poem,
makes it more attractive to look into its historical background and content.
Among the questions it raises, are: Under what circumstances was the poem
composed, and to what purpose? What does the poem tell us about the persons
involved — Egill himself, king Eiríkr of York and his friend Arinbjǫrn? It is not
my task here to answer all these questions, but I would like to call attention to
the rather comprehensive information we actually get in this poem. This is not
always so with skaldic poetry; the degree of information varies greatly. It seems,
however, to be a tendency that the density of information is somewhat higher in
poems in eddic (or eddic-based) metres, i.e. fornyrðislag, ljóðaháttr and kviðuháttr,
compared to the strictly skaldic dróttkvætt poetry. Whereas the latter shows an
overwhelming interest in linguistic experiment, with its extensive use of poetic
synonyms (heiti) and circumlocutions (kenningar), which tends to obscure the
factual content of the stanzas, the kviðuháttr poems, with their more straight-for-
ward language and style, give the historian more to work with.
The person who is mentioned most often in Arinbjarnarkviða is, naturally,
Arinbjǫrn. About him we get a lot of information, even though he is not intro-
duced before st. 10, where he stands forth as Egill’s guardian friend and helper in
the critical incident with king Eiríkr; Arinbjǫrn is “tryggr vinr minn” ‘my loyal
friend’ (st. 10.5). He is mentioned by name several times, as “Arinbjǫrn” (st.
11.1), “at Arinbjarnar” (‘at A.’s home’; st. 21.2) and within kennings with the use
of wordplay (ofljóst) as “bjóða bjǫrn / birki-sótta” ‘the bear of tables of fevers of
birch’ (> arinn ‘hearthstone’ > Arinbjǫrn; st. 16.7–8) and the simpler “Grjót -
bjǫrn” ‘stone-bear’ = Arinbjǫrn (st. 17.5). We get to know that he is the king’s
friend as well; he is “vinr þjóðans” (st. 11.5) and “vinr véþorms” ‘friend of the pro-
tector of sacred places’, that is the king (st. 19.7), and it is of course in this capac-
ity he is able to rescue Egill. About Arinbjǫrn’s background we learn that he is
“hersa *kundar” ‘the offspring of hersar’ (st. 14.8), “magar Þóris” ‘son of Þórir’ (st.
15.3) and finally “Hróalds hǫfuðbaðmi” ‘Hroaldr’s main descendant’ (st. 18.1–2).
In the saga, this is explained by Arinbjǫrn’s being the son of a certain Þórir, the
son of Hróaldr. This interest in genealogical descent is characteristic of Arbj, and
it may have something to do with the tradition of composing genealogical poems
in kviðuháttr (cf. Ynglingatal, Háleygjatal).
This is borne out when we now turn to Egill’s antagonist, king Eiríkr Har -
aldsson. In both Egils saga and Heimskringla, we are told that Haraldr Hár fagri’s
eldest son and heir, Eírikr, with the unfavourable nickname (probably a later
addition based on a skaldic stanza) blóðøx ‘Bloodaxe’, had to flee from his king-
dom in Norway because of his wrongdoings, but later settled down in York and
became king of Northumbria. A king Eric is actually attested in York around the
middle of the tenth century in both the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and in coinage,
and this has traditionally been seen as a confirmation of the Old Norse sources.
In recent times, however, doubt has been cast on this identification, most vig -
Comments from the second opponent 329