Athelstan of England

Athelstan — the historical king of the English — is the great foreign lord of Egil's saga, the generous overking in whose service the wolf-clan's brothers fight and one of them dies. He hires Egil and the golden Thorolf for his wars, and at the decisive battle of Vínheath (a saga reflex of the historical Brunanburh) they fight at the front of his line; Thorolf falls there, and Athelstan honours Egil's grief with rich compensation, including a great gift of silver that does not quite console the poet. He is also, in Heimskringla, the king who fosters the boy Hakon and raises him a Christian — so that Norway's best early king comes home from Athelstan's cultured court. Athelstan is the saga world's image of the splendid English overking — the rich, open-handed lord whose wars draw the Northmen south, whose silver cannot buy off a brother's grief, and whose fostering shapes the future of Norway.