Sagalong 2022: Egil’s Saga, Chapters 44-66

[BookishNorth]

I've just spent 34 minutes talking back at my screen, commenting along the way. Now I kind of wish I had taken notes...

The once mentioned girl in Halland where you speculate on what "getting on well" means, *wink wink*, reading her poem with that in mind, her wanting to "stroke her own fire" gets a nice double entendre as well. (In my Norwegian translation what she's saying is that I own my own "sess", where sess can mean both a seat or her ass. I love all these double meanings and wordplay in the poems.)

Also, I don't think Egil and Thorolf actually became christians. There were two forms of doing this. You could full on get baptized, which would mean you had converted, or there was this other solution which is what they did. In Norwegian it is called "primsigne", I don't know how that translates to English. What it meant was a more preparatory stage, and it was required to trade in the places that had taken to Christianity. And the vikings being pragmatic about it, quite often did this and continued on with their pagan beliefs at home. Egil gives both his brother and later on his father a pagan burial, as well as participating in blot feasts, as you noted. 

Oh, and there was a nithing pole in Gunnlaug Wormstongue's saga as well. But not as cool as Egil's with the horse head on it.

[elenamakridina]

My favourite christian viking king is Harald Hardrada, rading killing christian king with two wives.

Maybe Thorolf and Egil were becoming closer at king Aethelstan's service. Egil grew older maybe the age difference were less noticeable. Maybe if Thorolf hadn't been killed the brothers would have become great friends.