thematic thread
Poets & the Power of the Word
The word as ransom: condemned to death by King Eric, Egil composes a praise-poem so masterful overnight that the king cannot bring himself to kill him. Poetry literally buys back his head.
The Head-Ransom
Arinbjörn went armed to the king and pleaded for Egil's life, offering at last to die at Egil's side rather than see him killed — while Gunnhildr pressed for the execution she had wanted for years. Eiríkr would not promise mercy; but he granted Egil the night.[1]
And in that night Egil did the impossible thing the saga is most famous for. He composed a long praise-poem — the Höfuðlausn, the 'Head-Ransom' — in honour of the very king who meant to kill him, and the next day recited it in the hall, in a loud voice, until he won silence. It is a stunning act: not flattery exactly, but a poet weaponising his only true wealth, turning art itself into ransom.[2] (The poem stands in the saga in full; it is reached through the source here, not retold.)
Eiríkr sat upright through it, looking keenly at him. When it ended he gave his judgement: for Arinbjörn's sake, and because Egil had come freely into his power, he would give Egil 'his head this time' — but it was no reconciliation, and Egil must never come before his eyes again. Egil walked out alive, having bought his own head with a song.[3]
The source text · 3
King Eric went to table according to his wont, and much people were with him. And when Arinbjorn knew this, then went he with all his followers fully armed to the king's palace while the king sate at table. Arinbjorn craved entrance into the hall; it was granted. He and Egil went in with half of his followers, but the other half stood without before the door. Arinbjorn saluted the king; the king received him well. Arinbjorn spoke: 'Here now is come Egil. He has not sought to run away in the night. Nor would we fain know, my lord, what his lot is to be. I hope thou wilt let him get good from my words, for I think it a matter of great moment to me that Egil gain terms from thee. I have so acted (as was right) that neither in word nor deed have I spared aught whereby thy honour should be made greater than before. I have also abandoned all my possessions, kinsmen, and friends that I had in Norway, and followed thee when all other barons deserted thee; and herein do I what is meet, for thou hast often done great good to me.'— egils saga
Arinbjörn pleads; Gunnhildr presses for death (Green 1893).
<strong>HEAD-RANSOM</strong>— egils saga
Egil recites the Höfuðlausn — the genuine poem in the source.
King Eric sate upright while Egil recited the poem, and looked keenly at him. And when the song of praise was ended, then spake the king: 'Right well was the poem recited; and now, Arinbjorn, I have resolved about the cause between me and Egil, how it shall go. Thou hast pleaded Egil's cause with great eagerness, since thou offerest to risk a conflict with me. Now shall I for thy sake do what thou hast asked, letting Egil go from my land safe and unhurt. But thou, Egil, so order thy going that, after leaving my presence and this hall, thou never come before my eyes, nor my sons' eyes, nor be ever in the way of myself or my people. But I give thee now thy head this time for this reason, that thou camest freely into my power. I will do no dastardly deed on thee; yet know thou this for sure, that this is no reconciliation with me or my sons or any of our kin who wish to wreak their vengeance.'— egils saga
Eiríkr grants Egil 'his head this time.'
And the word as grief: Sonatorrek, the lament for his drowned son — the moment poetry stops being a weapon and becomes the only vessel that can hold unbearable loss.
Sonatorrek
Egil grew old at Borg, rich and feared, outliving his enemies. And then the sea, which had spared him in York, took from him the thing he could not ransom back: his beloved son Böðvarr drowned in the firth. Egil bore the body home, laid it in the family howe — and then shut himself in his bed-closet to starve himself to death. He would not eat; he would not speak; he meant to follow his son.[1]
His daughter Þorgerðr — the same Þorgerðr who would marry Óláfr the Peacock and become the mother of Kjartan, the thread that ties this saga to the tragedy of Laxdæla — came and tricked her way in beside him, pretending to starve with him. Then she told him a daughter's lie that was also wisdom: that he could not die yet, because no one but he could compose the memorial poem his son deserved.[2]
It worked. Egil began the poem — Sonatorrek, 'the hard loss of sons' — and composing it brought him back from the grave's edge. It is the greatest poem in the sagas: a father raging at the sea-god Rán who took his boy, at Óðinn who gave him the gift of verse and then this grief, and arriving, exhausted, at the will to live out his days. The poet who once turned art into ransom now turns it into survival.[3]
The source text · 3
Bodvar Egil's son was just now growing up; he was a youth of great promise, handsome, tall and strong as had been Egil or Thorolf at his age. Egil loved him dearly, and Bodvar was very fond of his father. One summer it happened that there was a ship in White-river, and a great fair was held there. Egil had there bought much wood, which he was having conveyed home by water: for this his house-carles went, taking with them an eight-oared boat belonging to Egil. It chanced one time that Bodvar begged to go with them, and they allowed him so to do. So he went into the field with the house-carles. They were six in all on the eight-oared boat. And when they had to go out again, high-water was late in the day, and, as they must needs wait for the turn of tide, they did not start till late in the evening. Then came on a violent south-west gale, against which ran the stream of the ebb. This made a rough sea in the firth, as can often happen. The end was that the boat sank under them, and all were lost. The next day the bodies were cast up: Bodvar's body came on shore at Einars-ness, but some came in on the south shore of the firth, whither also the boat was driven, being found far in near Reykjarhamar.— egils saga
Böðvarr drowns; Egil shuts himself away to die (Green 1893).
Then spoke Thorgerdr: 'What counsel shall we take now? This our purpose is defeated. Now I would fain, father, that we should lengthen our lives, so that you may compose a funeral poem on Bodvar, and I will grave it on a wooden roller; after that we can die, if we like. Hardly, I think, can Thorstein your son compose a poem on Bodvar; but it were unseemly that he should not have funeral rites. Though I do not think that we two shall sit at the drinking when the funeral feast is held.' Egil said that it was not to be expected that he could now compose, though he were to attempt it. 'However, I will try this,' said he.— egils saga
Þorgerðr coaxes him to compose the memorial poem.
Egil began to cheer up as the composing of the poem went on; and when the poem was complete, he brought it before Asgerdr and Thorgerdr and his family. He rose from his bed, and took his place in the high-seat. This poem he called 'Loss of Sons.' And now Egil had the funeral feast of his son held after ancient custom. But when Thorgerdr went home, Egil enriched her with good gifts.— egils saga
Sonatorrek — the genuine poem in the source.
Kormák falls for Steingerð at first sight and pours it into verse — but the poet who can say everything can possess nothing, and his love is cursed from the start. The skald doomed by his own gift.
First sight of Steingerð
Kormák — dark, black-haired, fierce-tempered, the son of a noted family in Miðfjörðr — was a poet almost before he was anything else. The saga's whole engine starts the moment he first sees Steingerð: he glimpses her feet, then her eyes, beneath a door, and is lost on the spot, breaking at once into verse about her ankles and her gaze.[1]
From that first sight the saga becomes what it uniquely is — less a chronicle of deeds than a frame for the flood of love-poems Kormák makes about Steingerð, stanza after stanza of longing and praise. The love is real and returned. What stands in its way is not a rival or a feud, at least not at first, but something the sagas take entirely seriously: a curse.
The source text · 1
That evening Steingerd came out of her bower, and a maid with her. Said the maid, "Steingerd mine, let us look at the guests."— kormaks saga
Kormák first sees Steingerð and falls in love (Collingwood & Stefánsson 1901).
Gunnlaug Worm-Tongue — named for the sharpness of his verse — wins fame and a betrothal, then loses Helga through the very sharpness of his tongue. The word that makes a poet also undoes him.
The betrothal and the sharp tongue
Gunnlaug, son of a neighbouring chief, grew up brilliant and difficult — a gifted poet with a tongue so cutting he was nicknamed ormstunga, Worm-Tongue. He and Helga loved each other, and Helga was vowed to him; but Gunnlaug was restless for fame, and would go abroad first to win renown at the courts of kings.[1]
A bargain was struck: Helga would wait three years for him. It is the same shape as a dozen saga partings — the young man who must have glory before he has the woman — and the same trap. Gunnlaug rode for the ship, leaving the fairest woman in Iceland promised but unwed, and a clock running that he would not respect.
The source text · 1
Gunnlaug Worm-Tongue was, as is aforesaid, whiles at Burg with Thorstein, whiles with his father Illugi at Gilsbank, three winters together, and was by now eighteen winters old; and father and son were now much more of a mind.— gunnlaugs saga
Helga vowed to Gunnlaug; he fares abroad for fame (Morris & Magnússon 1901).
The price paid: Helga the Fair dies still holding the cloak Gunnlaug gave her. The poet's word outlives the poet and the woman both — which is exactly what skaldic verse was for.
The death of Helga the Fair
Both poets dead, Helga was married a third time, to a worthy man she could not love — the third bird of the dream, carrying the swan away. She bore him children and kept his house, but her heart never left Gunnlaug.[1]
Her one comfort was the scarlet cloak Gunnlaug had given her; she would sit and pluck at its threads and gaze at it for hours. When a great sickness came on the household, Helga fell ill — and one evening, sitting in the firehall with her head on her husband's knees, she had the cloak brought to her, sat up and looked at it a long while, then sank back and died.[2] It is among the gentlest and most heartbreaking deaths in the sagas: not by sword or feud, but of a grief that simply outlasted her, with the gift of the man she loved in her hands. And there, the saga says, the story ends.
The source text · 2
As time went on, Thorstein Egilson married his daughter Helga to a man called Thorkel, son of Hallkel, who lived west in Hraundale. Helga went to his house with him, but loved him little, for she cannot cease to think of Gunnlaug, though he be dead. Yet was Thorkel a doughty man, and wealthy of goods, and a good skald.— gunnlaugs saga
Helga married a third time, still grieving Gunnlaug (Morris & Magnússon 1901).
So one Saturday evening Helga sat in the firehall, and leaned her head upon her husband's knees, and had the cloak Gunnlaug's-gift sent for; and when the cloak came to her she sat up and plucked at it, and gazed thereon awhile, and then sank back upon her husband's bosom, and was dead. Then Thorkel sang this:— gunnlaugs saga
Helga dies gazing at Gunnlaug's cloak.
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