Grave Of Egil Skalla-Grimsson Found? (Iceland)

Iceland Review ^ | 8-9-2005

[BoneHead]

I thought he was driving carriages around Central Park? Or was that the Citi Bank card commercial.....

[null and void]

This guy???:

Egil's Bones An Icelandic saga tells of a Viking who had unusual, menacing features, including a skull that could resist blows from an ax.

Egil, the son of Skalla-Grim...

[JCEccles]

This takes me back to the year I lived in Iceland and the three years I lived in England.

The saga of Egil Skallagrimsson is one of the greatest tales in Icelandic literature. In the city of York (then "Yarvik") Bloodaxe had determined to execute Skallagrimmson the next morning. But Skallagrimsson stayed up all night composing and commiting to memory "The Head Ransom" a poem offered--literally--as a ransom for Skallgrimsson's own head. It was considered a poetic tour de force, although I am sure you had to "be there" to really appreciate it.

The vikings were tough hombres. Gouging out an opponent's eyes is bad enough, but for real impact they devised the "blood eagle," whereby they would hack open the backs of their vanquished foes and pull their lungs through the openings to evoke the appearance of wings. This was intended to terrorize the local populations that they wished to conquer, and tended ot have that very effect.

In Yorkshire today you can see clear evidence (faces and hair) of the Viking influence in the gene pool of the local population.

One group of vikings went west and settled Iceland. Another group went east and settled along the great rivers of Russia.

[dmz]

LOL. In 919AD I don't think our forebears were any different from this guy.

[Marine_Uncle]

" Some people believe that he had a disease of the brain that made him so crazy violent."

Perhaps he just found an early addtion of a Qur'an.

[Leroy S. Mort]

Later in life, Egil fell in to a deep suicidal depression after loosing two sons.

Wonder if they were as hugh as he was.

[ExGeeEye]

Friend of yours? My condolences.

[ApplegateRanch]

he got drunk at three and killed at six.

Jeeeze, that's nottin. I heerd a'guys who was drunk afore noon, and wast dun kilt less'n an hour later.

[blam]

Egil's Bones

[Bahbah]

I enjoyed the article. Then, on a whole different level, I enjoyed the comments.

[szweig]

I read this to mean he was dead at age six. "He got drunk at three and killed at six." Talk about a poorly cast sentence...

[wardaddy]

I like Vikings.

Kirk Douglas was always my favorite Jewish Viking.

[ghostcat]

Fascinating article at that link, thanks for the post

[Tax-chick]

Wow, again!

[Bahbah]

Talk about a poorly cast sentence...

They will do no better than their teachers are capable of, it seems to me.

[Bahbah]

A guy who looked like that would give me a heck of a scare.

[Tribune7]

LOL. Can't argue with that!

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

Hmph. Talk about conjecture. Considering that Egil's Saga was most likely composed by Snorri Sturlason, and that Snorri was much more a poet than a historian (see the Prose Edda), I seriously doubt that Egil's life was anything like the saga suggests. This should be placed on the same plane as Brits claiming to have found Robin Hood's grave, or the exact site of Camelot. Sure, there probably was a Egil Skallagrimsson (the Icelanders keep very good geneologies... all the way back to the founding), and he probably was both fierce enough and literate enough to be memorable, but beyond that any other declaration is risky...

[Tax-chick]

Oh, that's no fun!

[SuzyQue]

Wow, what a guy!  Bet he was a lot of fun.

But, seriously, here's a short article on DNA testing of Scots showing their Viking heritage:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/bloodofthevikings/genetics_results_02.shtml