Kveldúlfr

Kveldúlf — the 'Evening-Wolf' — is the dark patriarch of Egil's line, the shape-strong ancestor whose nature shadows three generations. A great and respected man in Norway by day, he grows surly and dangerous as evening falls, and men whisper that he is hamrammr, a shape-shifter, the Evening-Wolf in truth. When Harald Fairhair's enmity destroys his son Thorolf, the aged Kveldúlf takes a terrible vengeance on the king's men at sea in a berserk fury — and then sets out for Iceland with his surviving son Skallagrím to escape the king forever, dying on the voyage; his coffin, cast overboard, comes ashore where Skallagrím settles Borg. Kveldúlf is the saga's image of the wolfish ancestor — the source of the family's huge strength, black moods, and berserk rage, the grandfather whose evening-nature runs down through Skallagrím to Egil himself, the dark root of the whole turbulent clan.