Vínheiðr

Vinheidr is the battlefield in England where Egil and his brother Thorolf fight for King Athelstan — a saga reflex of the historical Brunanburh — and where Thorolf falls. Hired into the English king's wars, the two brothers fight at the front of his line in a great battle against his enemies; the golden Thorolf is killed there, and Egil buries him on the field and grieves him hard, before going to claim from Athelstan the rich compensation that cannot console him. Vinheidr is the saga's image of the foreign battlefield where the bright brother dies — the English ground where the wolf-clan fought for an English king and lost its golden son, the field that takes Thorolf and leaves the darker, stranger Egil to live on and make the poetry.