Egill Skallagrímsson

Egill Skallagrímsson (Known as "Egill")

Viking Warrior-Chieftain, Skaldic Master Poet, Author of Höfuðlausn and Sonatorrek

Born 0910-01-01

Borg á Mýrum, Iceland

Passed Away 0990-01-01 Mosfell, Iceland

Lifespan 80 years old

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Notice / Correction

"Heavy is the grief to drag a dead son from the sea; but poetry is the divine mead that turns tears into song."

Archival Overview

Legendary 10th-century Icelandic Viking warrior-poet and berserker hero of Egil's Saga whose complex scaldic masterpieces include Höfuðlausn (Head-Ransom) and the grief-stricken Sonatorrek.

Biographical Record

Egill Skallagrímsson was born around 910 at Borg á Mýrum, Iceland, the son of Skalla-Grímr Kveldúlfsson. Renowned for his gigantic physical frame, ferocious warrior berserker skill in battle, and supreme scaldic poetic genius, he lived an epic life raiding across the British Isles and Scandinavia.

When captured in York by his blood enemy King Eric Bloodaxe, Egill composed overnight the virtuosic twenty-stanza scaldic praise poem Höfuðlausn (Head-Ransom), using end-rhyme for the first time in Old Norse to ransom his life. After his beloved sons died—one by fever, the other drowned in Borgarfjörður—Egill intended to starve himself to death, but was persuaded by his daughter to compose Sonatorrek (The Irreparable Loss of Sons), one of the most powerful elegies in world literature.

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Final Resting Place

Perpetual Memorial

Borg á Mýrum Burial Mound
Borgarnes, Iceland

                         GPS: 64.5500, -21.9167                    

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