child’s actual father, although on some occasions the ‘inferiority’ is more theoretical than actual. These relationships with foster parents and their families are often profound and loving and play a conspicuous role in many sagas. A somewhat similar kind of voluntary relationship can be formed between two young men in ‘sworn brotherhood’, a sort of foster relationship with each other.
Honour is an aristocratic and chivalric concept appropriate to a warrior class. In many societies it is manifested outwardly, in such things as rank, title and dress. In the
Íslendinga sögur
, however, a lively sense of honour is maintained by a society of farmers that functions largely without such institutional distinctions. Honour is a social construct. It is bestowed by the community as a reward for moderate and generous behaviour as much as for warlike derring-do, although strength and courage in fighting are greatly admired. The pursuit of honour is also internalized in individual characters in ways not easy for us to comprehend. While a desire to earn or to preserve honour in a social conflict is a saga hero’s most notable trait, a character’s conception of what his (or her) honour demands will sometimes strike us as idiosyncratic, exaggerated and humorous. One of the most profoundly complex instances of this is the character Egil Skallagrimsson: his particular
The Duty of Revenge and the Right to Inheritance
The duty of revenge was inherited in the Saga Age, in exactly the same way as claims to inheritance and property, according to a clear pattern of succession. This simplified chart is based on
Grágás
(Grey goose), the law book of the Commonwealth, and Preben Meulengracht Serensen’s
Saga and Society
(1993).
blend of Viking ferocity, greed and sensitivity to the requirements of his honour is closely associated in
Egil’s Saga
with his poetic genius.
VI. MYTHIC TRACES
But neither an exaggerated sense of Viking honour nor any other social consideration is sufficient to account for his character or that of any other complex saga hero. Egil’s verbal gifts extended, for example, to the composition and interpretation of magic inscriptions. With poetry he could perform magical curses as well as cures, even though usually doing so in a socially defined context, such as avenging some real or imagined slight. The patron of all poets was Odin, who was sometimes known as the one-eyed god. According to
Völuspá
(The Sibyl’s Prophecy) in the
Poetic Edda,
in a stanza that is also quoted in
Snorra-Edda,
Odin gave away his eye in order to drink from the underworld well of the wise god Mimir and thus to acquire wisdom. Egil is not only the beneficiary of Odin’s gifts of poetry and magic, but also to some small degree an embodiment of the god. Odin’s temperament is too vast and his powers too enormous to be accommodated fully in human form of course, nor does the saga suggest the identification of the god with his worshipper, but that mythic presence is a component of Egil’s nature which shapes and qualifies its more purely social dimensions.
In Chapter 55 of
Egil’s Saga
, the hero illustrates something of this mythic nature as he mourns the death in battle of his brother Thorolf, who was fighting for King Athelstan of England. As Egil sits in King Athelstan’s hall he seems to sink into a terrible grief. ‘He wrinkled one eyebrow right down on to his cheek and raised the other up to the roots of his hair. Egil had dark eyes and was swarthy. He refused to drink even when served, but just raised and lowered his eyebrows in turn.’ When the king begins to understand that Egil is depressed because he has no compensation for his brother, he gives him a large arm ring. ‘When Egil sat down, he drew the ring on to his arm, and his brow went back to normal. He put down his sword and helmet and took the drinking-horn that was served to him, and finished it. Then he spoke a verse.’
The mythic
Honour is an aristocratic and chivalric concept appropriate to a warrior class. In many societies it is manifested outwardly, in such things as rank, title and dress. In the
Íslendinga sögur
, however, a lively sense of honour is maintained by a society of farmers that functions largely without such institutional distinctions. Honour is a social construct. It is bestowed by the community as a reward for moderate and generous behaviour as much as for warlike derring-do, although strength and courage in fighting are greatly admired. The pursuit of honour is also internalized in individual characters in ways not easy for us to comprehend. While a desire to earn or to preserve honour in a social conflict is a saga hero’s most notable trait, a character’s conception of what his (or her) honour demands will sometimes strike us as idiosyncratic, exaggerated and humorous. One of the most profoundly complex instances of this is the character Egil Skallagrimsson: his particular
The Duty of Revenge and the Right to Inheritance
The duty of revenge was inherited in the Saga Age, in exactly the same way as claims to inheritance and property, according to a clear pattern of succession. This simplified chart is based on
Grágás
(Grey goose), the law book of the Commonwealth, and Preben Meulengracht Serensen’s
Saga and Society
(1993).
blend of Viking ferocity, greed and sensitivity to the requirements of his honour is closely associated in
Egil’s Saga
with his poetic genius.
VI. MYTHIC TRACES
But neither an exaggerated sense of Viking honour nor any other social consideration is sufficient to account for his character or that of any other complex saga hero. Egil’s verbal gifts extended, for example, to the composition and interpretation of magic inscriptions. With poetry he could perform magical curses as well as cures, even though usually doing so in a socially defined context, such as avenging some real or imagined slight. The patron of all poets was Odin, who was sometimes known as the one-eyed god. According to
Völuspá
(The Sibyl’s Prophecy) in the
Poetic Edda,
in a stanza that is also quoted in
Snorra-Edda,
Odin gave away his eye in order to drink from the underworld well of the wise god Mimir and thus to acquire wisdom. Egil is not only the beneficiary of Odin’s gifts of poetry and magic, but also to some small degree an embodiment of the god. Odin’s temperament is too vast and his powers too enormous to be accommodated fully in human form of course, nor does the saga suggest the identification of the god with his worshipper, but that mythic presence is a component of Egil’s nature which shapes and qualifies its more purely social dimensions.
In Chapter 55 of
Egil’s Saga
, the hero illustrates something of this mythic nature as he mourns the death in battle of his brother Thorolf, who was fighting for King Athelstan of England. As Egil sits in King Athelstan’s hall he seems to sink into a terrible grief. ‘He wrinkled one eyebrow right down on to his cheek and raised the other up to the roots of his hair. Egil had dark eyes and was swarthy. He refused to drink even when served, but just raised and lowered his eyebrows in turn.’ When the king begins to understand that Egil is depressed because he has no compensation for his brother, he gives him a large arm ring. ‘When Egil sat down, he drew the ring on to his arm, and his brow went back to normal. He put down his sword and helmet and took the drinking-horn that was served to him, and finished it. Then he spoke a verse.’
The mythic
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