The Sagas of the Icelanders (31 page)

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Egil got up at daybreak the next morning. He and his companions prepared to leave, and when they were ready they went back to the farm to look for Armod. When they found the chamber where Armod was sleeping with his wife and daughter, Egil flung the door open and went over to his bed. He drew his sword, seized Armod by the beard with his other hand and tugged him over to the side of the bed. Armod’s wife and daughter both jumped up and implored Egil not to kill him.

Egil said he would spare him for their sake – ‘That is the fair thing to do, but if he were worth the bother I would kill him.’

Then he spoke a verse:

Then Egil cut off Amrod’s beard close to the chin, and gouged out one of his eyes with his finger, leaving it hanging on his cheek. After that, Egil went off to his companions.

They went on their way and arrived at Thorfinn’s farm early in the morning. He lived in Eideskog. Egil and his men asked for breakfast and somewhere to rest their horses. Thorfinn granted them that, and Egil and his men went into the main room.

Egil asked Thorfinn if he knew anything about his companions.

‘We arranged to meet here,’ he said.

Thorfinn replied, ‘Six men came by here some time before daybreak, all heavily armed.’

One of Thorfinn’s farmhands added, ‘I went out to gather timber in the night and came across six men who were going somewhere. They were
Armod’s farmhands and it was well before daybreak. I don’t know whether these were the same six you mentioned.’

Thorfinn said the men he met had been travelling later than when the farmhand brought the cartload of timber back.

When Egil and his men sat down to eat, he saw a sick woman lying on the cross-bench. Egil asked Thorfinn who the woman was and why she was in such a poor state.

Thorfinn said she was his daughter Helga – ‘She has been weak for a long time.’

She was suffering from a wasting sickness, and could not sleep at night because of some kind of a delirium.

‘Has anyone tried to find out the cause of her illness?’ Egil asked.

‘We had some runes carved,’ said Thorfinn. ‘The son of a farmer who lives close by did it, and since then she’s been much worse. Do you know any remedy, Egil?’

Egil said, ‘It might not do any harm if I try something.’

When Egil had eaten his fill he went to where the woman was lying and spoke to her. He ordered them to lift her out of her bed and place clean sheets underneath her, and this was done. Then he examined the bed she had been lying in, and found a whalebone with runes carved on it. After reading the runes, Egil shaved them off and scraped them into the fire. He burned the whalebone and had her bedclothes aired. Then Egil spoke a verse:

Egil cut some runes and placed them under the pillow of the bed where she was lying. She felt as if she were waking from a deep sleep, and she said she was well again, but still very weak. But her father and mother were overjoyed. Thorfinn offered Egil all the provisions he thought he needed.

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Egil told his companions that he wanted to continue on his journey and not wait any longer. Thorfinn offered to accompany Egil through the forest with his son Helgi, who was a brave lad. They told him they were certain Armod Beard had sent the six men to waylay them in the forest, and that there were likely to be more ambushes if the first failed. Thorfinn and three others offered to go with them. Then Egil spoke a verse:

Thorfinn and his men decided to go to the forest with Egil, so there were eight of them in all. When they came to the ambush they saw some people there. Armod’s six farmhands were lying in ambush, but when they saw eight men approaching, they did not think they had any chance against them, and stole away to the forest. When Egil and his men reached the spot where the spies had been, they could tell that danger was lurking. Egil told Thorfinn and his men to go back, but they wanted to go on. Egil refused and insisted that they go home, so in the end they did. They set off for home again, while Egil and his three men continued their journey.

As the day wore on, Egil and his men noticed six men in the woods, and guessed that they were Armod’s farmhands. The spies jumped out and attacked them, but Egil fought back. When they clashed, Egil killed two of the attackers and the rest ran back into the forest.

Then Egil and his men proceeded on their way, and nothing else happened until they emerged from the forest and spent the night on a nearby farm with a farmer named Alf, who was nicknamed Alf the Wealthy. He was an old, wealthy man, but so unsociable that he could only bear having a few people working for him on the farm. Egil received a warm welcome there, and Alf was talkative to him. Egil asked him many things, and he answered them all. They talked mainly about the earl and the envoys of the king of Norway who had gone out to the east to collect tribute. From what Alf said, he was no friend of the earl’s.

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Early the next morning, Egil and his companions prepared to leave. As a parting gift, Egil gave Alf a fur coat which he accepted thankfully.

‘I can have it made into a fur cape,’ he said, as he invited Egil to visit him again on his way back.

They parted good friends, and Egil continued on his way. In the evening he reached Earl Arnvid’s company and was well received there. He and his companions were given seats next to the head of the table.

After staying there for the night, Egil and his companions told the earl of their errand and the king’s message, saying he wanted all the tribute from Varmland that had gone unpaid since Arnvid was appointed to rule there.

The earl told them he had already paid all the tribute to the king’s envoys: ‘I don’t know what they did with it after that, whether they handed it over to the king or ran away with it to another country. Since you are carrying genuine tokens to prove the king sent you, I will pay all the tribute he is entitled to and hand it over to you. But I won’t be held responsible for the way you look after it.’

Egil and his men stayed there for some while, and before they left, the earl paid the tribute over to them. Some of it was in silver and the rest in furs.

After Egil and his men had made their preparations to leave, they set off.

When they parted, Egil told the earl, ‘We will give the king the tribute we have received from you, but you ought to realize that this is much less money than the king lays claim to here. And that’s not counting the fact that he feels you should pay compensation for the lives of his envoys, because people are saying you had them killed.’

The earl said this rumour was untrue, and they parted.

Once Egil had left, the earl called in two brothers, both of them named Ulf.

He said to them, ‘That big man, Egil, who was around here for a while – I think it will cause us a lot of trouble if he makes it back to the king. I can imagine the impression he will give about me to the king, judging from the accusations he threw around here about executing the king’s men. You go after them and kill them all to stop them spreading such slander to the king. My advice is to ambush them in Eideskog. Take enough men with you, to be sure that none of them gets away and that you do not suffer any injuries at their hands.’

The brothers got ready to leave, taking thirty men with them. They entered the forest, where they were familiar with every trail, and kept watch for Egil’s movements.

There were two routes through the forest. The shorter one involved crossing a ridge that had steep slopes and a narrow track over the top. The other route was to go round the ridge where there were large marshes, covered by felled logs to cross by, with a single track over them too. Fifteen men sat in ambush on each route.

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Egil proceeded until he reached Alf’s farm, where he stayed for the night and was well looked after. The next morning he got up before daybreak and prepared to leave. Alf came over to them when they were having breakfast.

‘You’re making an early start, Egil,’ he said. ‘But I wouldn’t advise you to rush your journey. Be careful, because I expect people to be waiting in ambush for you in the forest. I do not have any men who would be any help to send with you, but I want to invite you to stay here with me until I can tell you it’s safe to go through the forest.’

‘It’s nothing but nonsense to claim that we will be ambushed,’ Egil replied. ‘I will go on my way as I planned.’

Egil and his men made preparations to leave, but Alf tried to discourage him and told him to come back if he noticed tracks on the path, saying that no one had come back through the forest from the east since Egil went there, ‘unless the people that I expect will be looking for you have been there’.

‘How many of them do you think there are, assuming what you say is right?’ asked Egil. ‘We’re not at their mercy, even if they outnumber us by a few men.’

‘I went over near the forest with my farmhands,’ said Alf, ‘and we came across human tracks that extended into the forest. There must have been a lot of them together. If you don’t believe what I’m saying, go there yourself and take a look at the tracks, but come back here if you think what I’ve told you is right.’

Egil went on his way, and when the party reached the road through the forest, they saw tracks left by both men and horses. Egil’s companions said they wanted to turn back.

‘We will go on,’ Egil said. ‘It doesn’t surprise me that people have been travelling through Eideskog, because it’s the route everyone takes.’

They set off again and the tracks continued, many of them, until they
reached a fork in the road where the tracks also split up into two equal groups.

‘It looks as though Alf may have been telling the truth,’ said Egil. ‘Let us be prepared to expect an encounter.’

Egil and his men took off their cloaks and all their loose clothing, and put them on the sleighs. He had taken along a long bast rope in his sleigh, since it was the custom on longer journeys to have a spare rope in case the reins needed mending. Then he took a huge slab of rock and placed it against his chest and stomach, then strapped it tight with the rope, winding it around his body all the way up to his shoulders.

Eideskog is heavily wooded right up to the settlements on either side of it, but deep inside it are bushes and brushwood, and in some places no trees at all.

Egil and his men took the shorter route that lay over the ridge. They were all carrying shields and wearing helmets, and had axes and spears as well. Egil led the way. The ridge was wooded at its foot, but the slopes up to the bluff were bare of trees.

When they were on the bluff, seven men leapt out of the trees and up the cliff after them, shooting arrows at them. Egil and his men turned around and blocked the whole path. Other men came down at them from the top of the ridge and threw rocks at them from above, which was much more dangerous.

Egil told them, ‘You go and seek shelter at the foot of the bluff and protect yourselves as best you can, while I take a look on top.’

They did so. And when Egil reached the top of the bluff, there were eight men waiting there, who all attacked him at once. Without describing the blows, their clash ended with Egil killing them all. Then he went up to the edge of the bluff and hurled down rocks that were impossible to fend off. Three of the Varmlanders were left dead, while four escaped into the forest, hurt and bruised.

After that, Egil and his men returned to their horses and continued until they had crossed the ridge. The Varmlanders who had escaped tipped off their companions who were by the marshes. They headed along the lower path and emerged on the track in front of Egil and his men.

One of the brothers who were both named Ulf said to his men, ‘Now we have to devise a scheme and arrange things to prevent them running away. The route here skirts the ridge, and there’s a cliff above it where the marsh extends up to it. The path there is no wider than a single track. Some of us should go around the ridge and face them if they try to move forwards, and the rest should hide here in the forest and jump out behind them when they come past. We will make sure that no one gets away.’

They did as Ulf said. Ulf went around the cliff, taking ten men with him.

Egil and his men went on their way, unaware of this plan until they reached the single track, where they were attacked from behind by nine armed men. When Egil and his men fought back and defended themselves, others rushed up who had been in front of the ridge. Seeing this, Egil turned to face them. In a few quick blows he killed some of them, and the rest retreated to where the ground was more level. Egil pursued them. Ulf died there, and in the end Egil killed eleven men by himself. Then he pressed on to where his companions were holding eight men at bay on the path. Men were wounded on both sides. When Egil arrived, the Varmlanders fled at once into the nearby forest. Five of them escaped, all severely wounded, and three were killed on the spot.

Egil received many wounds, but none of them serious. They went on their way, and Egil tended his companions’ wounds, none of which was fatal. Then they got on to their sleighs and rode for the rest of the day.

The Varmlanders who managed to escape took their horses and struggled back from the forest to the settlement in the east, where their wounds were tended to. There they got some men to go and see the earl and tell him about their misfortunes.

They reported that both brothers named Ulf were dead, and twenty-five men in all: ‘Only five escaped with their lives, all of them wounded or injured.’

The earl asked about Egil and his men.

‘We have no idea how many of them were wounded,’ they replied. ‘They attacked us with great bravery. When there were eight of us and four of them, we fled. Five of us made it to the forest and the other three died, and as far as we could see, Egil and his men hadn’t taken a scratch.’

The earl said their expedition had turned out in the worst possible way.

‘I could have put up with you suffering heavy losses if you had killed the Norwegians,’ he said, ‘but now when they go west of the forest and tell this news to the king of Norway we can expect the harshest treatment imaginable from him.’