The Icelandic saga Egil's Saga

The characters in the Icelandic saga Egil's Saga live in a brutish world where the values that are prized are quite different from those of our own society. The rules of conscience which we would observe do not apply to characters such as Egil, who commits his first murder when he is six years old and who us noted and honored for the ruthlessness with which he conducts his affairs. The values of the Vikings relate to a sense of honor, to the maintenance of order within a kingdom if not between kingdoms, to the continuation of a hierarchy, and to the all-embracing need to further the interests of society in security and economic advancement. These values were developed in an environment of violence, plunder, and the destruction of enemies, and the sort of values that developed can be seen as reflective of the world which formed them.

Egil's Saga was written by Snorri Sturluson, and the character he created represents a number of contradictions to modern eyes:

He is a strange blend of divine inspiration, human sensitivity, and brutal coarseness and greed. It would be preposterous to suppose that such a personality could have emerged, as it were, of its own accord, from the accounts of generations. Only a creative genius like Snorri Sturluson could have fashioned his choicest hero in so unprepossessing a form--and still made him tower head and shoulders above other men.

Egil's story includes a number of related stories which describe much about Viking life. The Vik

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a local brawl with another chieftain, was expected to be in the forefront of the fight and to perform feats of strength beyond the capacities of other men. . . It was a rare occurrence in the early days for a ruler to succeed in passing his crown to a son unless that son was prepared to fight fiercely for the right to retain it. The Vikings had no long-established aristocracy. The bondis who made up the bulk of the population recognized only force of will and arms, and as free men and warriors as well as farmers, no doubt many among them nurtured ambitions of becoming jarls or even kings. This was an egalitarian society to the degree that it was possible for a man to rise from the lower ranks to the higher through force of arms, and the son of a king had to prove himself just as would any other contender. The actions undertaken by the different leaders in Egil's Saga relate to this belief in force of arms. The competitive spirit is evident throughout this book, as the dedication to contests on the part of Skallagrim shows: Skallagrim took great pleasure in trials of strength and competitive sports, and always enjoyed talking about them. Ball-games were a common sport in those days and there were plenty of strong men a

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