Page:The Story of Egil Skallagrimsson.djvu/21

Vermaland to gather the king's tribute. From the perils of this he escapes; then in spring sails out to Iceland, where he lives without further adventure.

His daughters get husbands: of his sons, Gunnar dies young of sickness; Bodvar is drowned, aged about sixteen, on which loss Egil composes a poem; and later one on Arinbjorn. Upon the death of Asgerdr, his wife, he leaves Borg, and retires to live at Mossfell with Grim and Thordisa his niece and step-daughter. Thorstein, Egil's youngest son, has a lawsuit with an encroaching neighbour; the decision of this, referred to Egil, is about his last public act. But he lives on to be very old and blind, and dies of sickness.

Grim and Thorstein afterwards become Christians. Many famous men sprang from Skallagrim and Egil. Bones believed to be Egil's were found about a hundred and sixty years after his death, and removed to the churchyard at Mossfell.

Through the whole Saga, as a connecting thread, runs the family feud between the house of Kveldulf and the house of Harold. Old Kveldulf's prophecy that Harold will work scathe on his kin comes true by Thorolf's death. Vengeance for him is taken, and the feud sleeps awhile; nay, against his father Harold's warning, Eric accepts the younger Thorolf as a friend. But Egil, going to Norway, by his headstrong deeds reawakens the quarrel, being perhaps nothing loth to do so, and following Skallagrim's mood, who had scorned king Eric's gift sent by the hand of Thorolf. The enmity is bitter between Egil and Eric stirred by Gunnhilda; Egil however wins through all perils, and, even as Harold Fairhair, chief of the feud on the other side, had done, at last dies in his bed full of years.