thematic thread
War & the Warrior
Egil in the thick of it: the great battle for Athelstan of England, the saga's set-piece of viking war, where the poet shows he is first of all a killer.
Viking years and the battle for Athelstan
Egil and Þórólf went harrying together in the Baltic and the west — the Viking apprenticeship, raid and plunder along foreign coasts.[1] Their roving carried them at last to England, into the service of King Athelstan, who hired the brothers and their men against his enemies.
At the great battle of Vínheiðr, Egil and Þórólf held a wing of Athelstan's host. They won the day — but Þórólf, the golden brother, fell in the fighting. Egil buried him, closed his eyes, laid him in the earth with his weapons, and spoke verses over the grave.[2] Athelstan, to console him, heaped silver on him; and Egil — grasping to the bone — composed for the king a poem of thanks, his grief and his greed and his art all moving together, as they always do in him.
The source text · 2
Thorolf and Egil stayed that winter with Thorir, and were made much of. But in spring they got ready a large war-ship and gathered men thereto, and in summer they went the eastern way and harried; there won they much wealth and had many battles. They held on even to Courland, and made a peace for half a month with the men of the land and traded with them. But when this was ended, then they took to harrying, and put in at divers places. One day they put in at the mouth of a large river, where was an extensive forest upon land. They resolved to go up the country, dividing their force into companies of twelve. They went through the wood, and it was not long before they came to peopled parts. There they plundered and slew men, but the people fled, till at last there was no resistance. But as the day wore on, Thorolf had the blast sounded to recall his men down to the shore. Then each turned back from where they were into the wood. But when Thorolf mustered his force, Egil and his company had not come down; and the darkness of night was closing in, so that they could not, as they thought, look for him.— egils saga
Egil and Þórólf go harrying (Green 1893).
While his men still pursued the fugitives, king Athelstan left the battle-field, and rode back to the town, nor stayed he for the night before he came thither. But Egil pursued the flying foe, and followed them far, slaying every man whom he overtook. At length, sated with pursuit, he with his followers turned back, and came where the battle had been, and found there the dead body of his brother Thorolf. He took it up, washed it, and performed such other offices as were the wont of the time. They dug a grave there, and laid Thorolf therein with all his weapons and raiment. Then Egil clasped a gold bracelet on either wrist before he parted from him; this done they heaped on stones and cast in mould. Then Egil sang a stave:— egils saga
Þórólf falls at Vínheiðr; Egil buries him.
The berserks: two of them set to clear a lava-field to win a wife, their inhuman strength turned to a task — and then disposed of. The fury as both weapon and danger.
The berserks
Two Swedish berserks — men who fell into killing-rages, howling and biting their shield-rims, near-impossible to fight — come into the district in service to Snorri's rival. When one of them demands a wife above his station, a cunning plan disposes of them: they are set an impossible labour, a road and a wall across a lava-field, and then trapped and killed in a bath-house heated scalding while they lie exhausted from the work.[1]
The episode is pure Eyrbyggja — a supernatural menace (the berserk fury) defeated not by greater strength but by craft and trickery, the district's recurring method. The road and the wall the berserks built across the lava, the saga notes, can still be seen. The uncanny, again, is overcome by the cool intelligence the saga prizes above raw force.
The source text · 1
Now that happed to tell of next which is aforewritten, that the Bareserks were with Stir, and when they had been there awhile, Halli fell to talking with Asdis, Stir's daughter. She was a young woman and a stately, proud of attire, and somewhat high-minded; but when Stir knew of their talk together, he bade Halli not to do him that shame and heartburn in beguiling his daughter.— eyrbyggja saga
The berserks set an impossible task and killed in the bath-house (Morris & Magnússon 1892).
The last stand at its grandest: Bjarki's terrible slaughter as Rolf Kraki's hall falls around him, the champions choosing to die fighting beside their king.
Bjarki's slaughter and Odin on the field
The greatest of the champions is Bjarki — in the Norse tradition a were-bear, whose fighting-spirit is said to take the form of a great bear at the battle. In Saxo he sleeps strangely deep as the attack begins, and Hjalti must call him again and again before he rouses;[1] but once awake, Bjarki deals terrible slaughter among the attackers, a one-man wall before his king. The champions fight with the desperate valour of men who have chosen to die well.
And at the climax comes the detail that ties this Danish legend straight to the heart of Norse myth. As the battle turns hopeless, the dying Bjarki says that if only he could look upon the awful husband of Frigg — Odin — however the god be covered with his white shield, riding his horse across the field, he would not let him go unhurt.[2] The appearance of Odin on a battlefield is, in the Norse mind, the sign that the war-god has come to claim his chosen dead; to see him is to know the doom is sealed. Bjarki's defiant wish to wound the very god who has decreed the king's fall is the legend's grandest moment — and it is unmistakably the Odin of the Eddas, the chooser of the slain, walking through Saxo's Latin to gather Rolf's fallen champions to Valhöll.
The source text · 2
"Bjarke, why art thou absent? Doth deep sleep hold thee? I prithee, what makes thee tarry? Come out, or the fire will overcome thee. Ho! Choose the better way, charge with me! Bears may be kept off with fire; let us spread fire in the recesses, and let the blaze attack the door-posts first. Let the firebrand fall upon the bedchamber, let the falling roof offer fuel for the flames and serve to feed the fire. It is right to scatter conflagration on the doomed gates. But let us who honour our king with better loyalty form the firm battle-wedges, and, having measured the phalanx in safe rows, go forth in the way the king taught us: our king, who laid low Rorik, the son of Bok the covetous, and wrapped the coward in death. He was rich in wealth, but in enjoyment poor, stronger in gain than bravery; and thinking gold better than warfare, he set lucre above all things, and ingloriously accumulated piles of treasure, scorning the service of noble friends. And when he was attacked by the navy of Rolf, he bade his servants take the gold from the chests and spread it out in front of the city gates, making ready bribes rather than battle, because he knew not the soldier, and thought that the foe should be attempted with gifts and not with arms: as though he could fight with wealth alone, and prolong the war by using, not men, but wares! So he undid the heavy coffers and the rich chests; he brought forth the polished bracelets and the heavy caskets; they only fed his destruction. Rich in treasure, poor in warriors, he left his foes to take away the prizes which he forebore to give to the friends of his own land. He who once shrank to give little rings of his own will, now unwillingly squandered his masses of wealth, rifling his hoarded heap. But our king in his wisdom spurned him and the gifts he proffered, and took from him life and goods at once; nor was his foe profited by the useless wealth which he had greedily heaped up through long years. But Rolf the righteous assailed him, slew him, and captured his vast wealth, and shared among worthy friends what the hand of avarice had piled up in all those years; and, bursting into the camp which was wealthy but not brave, gave his friends a lordly booty without bloodshed. Nothing was so fair to him that he would not lavish it, or so dear that he would not give it to his friends, for he used treasure like ashes, and measured his years by glory and not by gain. Whence it is plain that the king who hath died nobly lived also most nobly, that the hour of his doom is beautiful, and that he graced the years of his life with manliness. For while he lived his glowing valour prevailed over all things, and he was allotted might worthy of his lofty stature. He was as swift to war as a torrent tearing down to sea, and as speedy to begin battle as a stag is to fly with cleft foot upon his fleet way.— gesta danorum
Hjalti calls the deep-sleeping Bjarki to come out and fight (Elton 1894).
Then said Bjarke: "If I may look on the awful husband of Frigg, howsoever he be covered with his white shield, and guide his tall steed, he shall in no wise go safe out of Leire; it is lawful to lay low in war the war-waging god. Let a noble death come to those that fall before the eyes of their king. While life lasts, let us strive for the power to die honourably and to reap a noble end by our deeds. I will die overpowered near the head of my slain captain, and at his feet thou also shalt slip on thy face in death, so that whoso scans the piled corpses may see in what wise we rate the gold our lord gave us. We shall be the prey of ravens and a morsel for hungry eagles, and the ravening bird shall feast on the banquet of our body. Thus should fall princes dauntless in war, clasping their famous king in a common death."— gesta danorum
dying Bjarki longs to look on Odin, the husband of Frigg, on the field (Elton 1894).
Stamford Bridge: the last great viking battle, one warrior holding the bridge alone, Harald Hardrada falling at the close of the viking age itself.
Stamford Bridge
Then Harold Godwinson did what Harald never expected: he marched the length of England at astonishing speed and fell on the Norse host by surprise at Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire — Harald's men scattered, many without their armour, on a hot September day.[1]
The saga gives the grim, famous scene before the battle: the English king rides up and, not recognising his own brother in the Norse ranks, offers Tostig peace and a great earldom if he will turn — and asks what he will give Harald of Norway. Tostig refuses to betray his ally; the answer Harald is offered is 'seven feet of English ground, or as much more as he is taller than other men.'[2] Then the battle joined.
The source text · 2
When King Harald was clear for sea, and the wind became favourable, he sailed out into the ocean; and he himself landed in Shetland, but a part of his fleet in the Orkney Islands. King Harald stopped but a short time in Shetland before sailing to Orkney, from whence he took with him a great armed force, and the earls Paul and Erlend, the sons of Earl Thorfin; but he left behind him here the Queen Ellisif, and her daughters Maria and Ingegerd. Then he sailed, leaving Scotland and England westward of him, and landed at a place called Klifland. There he went on shore and plundered, and brought the country in subjection to him without opposition. Then he brought up at Skardaburg, and fought with the people of the place. He went up a hill which is there, and made a great pile upon it, which he set on fire; and when the pile was in clear flame, his men took large forks and pitched the burning wood down into the town, so that one house caught fire after the other, and the town surrendered. The Northmen killed many people there and took all the booty they could lay hold of. There was nothing left for the Englishmen now, if they would preserve their lives, but to submit to King Harald; and thus he subdued the country wherever he came. Then the king proceeded south along the land, and brought up at Hellornes, where there came a force that had been assembled to oppose him, with which he had a battle, and gained the victory.— heimskringla
Harold Godwinson surprises the Norse at Stamford Bridge (Laing 1844).
The English king Harald said to the Northmen who were with him, "Do ye know the stout man who fell from his horse, with the blue kirtle and the beautiful helmet?"— heimskringla
The parley: Harold offers Tostig terms, Harald 'seven feet of ground'.
When law becomes war: the great suit at the Alþingi collapses into an actual battle on the assembly plain — the saga world's two arenas, court and field, revealed as one.
Battle at the Alþingi
So the holiest peace-ground in Iceland became a battlefield. When the suit collapsed, the two sides took up arms at the assembly itself and fought — the burners and the avengers, hacking at each other across the very plain where disputes were supposed to be ended without blood. Men fell on both sides before the great chieftains could force a halt and impose, by main weight, an arbitrated peace.[1]
That a fight could break out at the Alþingi is the saga's bleakest verdict on where the burning had brought everyone: the law, Njáll's lifelong instrument, broken open into open war on its own ground. A settlement was hammered out for most of the burners. But Kári would not be party to it. He took no atonement. His feud stayed his own.[2]
The source text · 2
Now Snorri the priest hears how the causes stood, and then he begins to draw up his men in array below the "Great Rift," between it and Hadbooth, and laid down beforehand to his men how they were to behave.— njals saga
The battle at the Alþingi.
Hall of the Side and his son Kol, seven of them in all, rode west over Loomnip's Sand, and so west over Arnstacksheath, and did not draw bridle till they came into Myrdale. There they asked whether Thorgeir would be at home at Holt, and they were told that they would find him at home.— njals saga
The settlement; Kári stays outside it.
The running battle on the heath, named for its concrete, soldierly detail — tired men killing each other on a moor, counted and named. War stripped of glory, shown as it was.
Battle on the heath
The pursuit ran Bardi's eighteen men down on the high moorland of Two-Days' Heath, and there the saga's great set-piece is fought.[1] Cornered on a narrow neck of ground where only a few could come at them at once, Bardi arrayed his band and they stood with brandished weapons against the chasing Southern men — and a fierce, close, running battle followed, fought in 'brunts,' wave after wave.
The heath-battle is famous for its concreteness. The saga names the men, the ground, the order of the ranks, who stood at Bardi's right hand and who at his left, how the attackers could only come on along one narrow way — the kind of precise, soldierly detail that has made scholars think the account preserves a real memory of a real fight. It is not a poet's set-piece of glorious carnage but something grimmer and more exact: tired men killing each other on a moor, counted and named. The 'heath-slayings' that title the saga are this — and they leave dead on both sides, a vengeance paid for in more blood than it answered.
The source text · 1
Now they come face to face, Bardi and the Southern men, who now got off their horses. Bardi's folk had arrayed them athwart the ness. "Go none of you forth beyond these steps," says Bardi, "because I misdoubt me that more men are to be looked for."— heidarviga saga
Bardi and the Southern men come face to face on the heath; the battle is joined (Morris & Magnússon 1892).
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