X-Nico

unusual facts about Egill Skallagrímsson


Borg á Mýrum

His son Egill Skallagrímsson then continued to live and farm at Borg á Mýrum.


Geri and Freki

In skaldic poetry Geri and Freki are used as common nouns for "wolf" in chapter 58 of Skáldskaparmál (quoted in works by the skalds Þjóðólfr of Hvinir and Egill Skallagrímsson) and Geri is again used as a common noun for "wolf" in chapter 64 of the Prose Edda book Háttatal.

Gunnlaugr Ormstunga

After a quarrel with his father, Illugi, Gunnlaugr left his home at age twelve to stay for some time at Borg with Þorsteinn Egilsson, the son of Egill Skallagrímsson.

Kenning

For example, Old Norse poets might replace sverð, the regular word for “sword”, with a more abstract compound such as “wound-hoe” (Egill Skallagrímsson: Höfuðlausn 8), or a genitive phrase such as randa íss “ice of shields” (Einarr Skúlason: ‘Øxarflokkr’ 9).


see also

Nithing pole

A notable example from 2006 happened when a farmer in Bíldudalur, claiming direct descent from Egill Skallagrímsson, raised a pole with a calf's head attached against another local man with a note attached to the effect that he would not rest until the man was either outlawed or dead.