04 | Saga Land | The story of Egil

Broadcaster Richard Fidler and writer Kari Gislason continue their travels across Iceland to tell the ancient Viking sagas; tales of love, war and humanity. In this episode they follow the steps of Egil. He was a killer, a ruthless opportunist but also one of the greatest court poets of the Middle Ages. He travelled far and wide through the Viking world in pursuit of fame and wealth. And yet it was back at his family farm Borg á Mýrum, in Iceland’s mid-west, that he faced his ultimate test, and where he would compose his most moving verse. A thousand years after Egil, Kári and Richard make the return journey to Reykjavik, and receive some unexpected help in the search for Kári’s bloodline.

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  ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music and more.

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  Australia's alliance with the United States has been the linchpin of our country's foreign policy for decades.

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  We value the unbroken friendship between the Australian and the American peoples.

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  But between the wars and the tariffs and the unpredictability, are we growing apart?

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  You know who else didn't help us? Australia.

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  Join me, Hamish Macdonald.

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  And me, Geraldine Dugas, we ask, do we still need the alliance? Search for Global Roaming on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to ABC Rewind. Fame and wealth, they've been the downfall of many over the ages. So it seems only fitting that they feature in Iceland's legendary Viking sagas, especially the one that ABC broadcaster and author Richard Fidler explores with his friend, the writer Kari Gislason, in this final episode of their Saga Land series. Also in this episode, we find out the answer to a tantalising mystery in Kari's family history, thanks to a DNA test and Iceland's detailed national population database.

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  This is Iceland. It's a place that's almost supernaturally beautiful and wild.

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  There are almost no trees and the sky goes on forever. And the birdsong sounds like nothing I've ever heard before.

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  Iceland lies on the fault line between Europe and America. And so there are craggy volcanoes pushing up from beneath the earth's surface. And there are massive, heavy glaciers pushing back down on it.

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  My friend Kari and I have come to Iceland, the place where he was born, to tell a story and to uncover a mystery.

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  Kari has split his life between Australia and Iceland. He's a writer and one of the things that keeps drawing him back to this impossible island are the sagas of Iceland.

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  The sagas are some of the best stories ever written.

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  These are tales of love and revenge and loss, mixed up with moments of great tenderness. And together they form one of the great monuments of world literature.

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  They're stories about Vikings, written by Icelanders. They're not faraway lands, they're not impossible events, they're things that actually happened.

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  So a while back, Kari and I hatched a plan to go to remote locations all over Iceland to tell four stories from the sagas of four Viking men and women in the places where they actually happened.

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  But before we do that, there's this mystery we've come here to solve.

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  When I was born, my father already had a family and his name wasn't on the birth certificate. And as a result, I didn't have that connection to the rest of Icelandic society. Eventually, when we did meet, you know, years later, on our last meeting, actually, he said something incredible. He said, "You're descended from Snodri Stolsson, the greatest saga author of Iceland."

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  But is it true?

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  Well, I have tried to find out, but I haven't been able to work it out yet. I went to Iceland in December 2013 and I began investigating. But because of the way that the genealogical trees are kind of documented, I haven't yet been able to find out for sure whether I am related to Snodri or not.

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  Like I said, Kari was born here in Iceland and so his name is recorded in Iceland's genealogical database, which is known here as Islandica Book, the Book of Icelanders.

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  Kari's name is in the Book of Icelanders, but it lives in there like a little island because his father's name was never written down on Kari's birth certificate.

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  Kari has an address in Reykjavik for Islandica Book. And we're going there now to ask them to connect Kari to his father's bloodline. So we're just going to kind of throw ourselves at the mercy of the good people of Islandica Book, but in a very restrained and polite and Icelandic way.

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  And we're hoping it won't be too weird or awkward.

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  What did she just tell us? That they've moved to the Decode office.

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  It turns out, they're not there anymore.

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  We're told that Islandica Book has moved to bigger and grander offices at the headquarters of Decode, the genetic research project here in Reykjavik. Anyway, we drive out to Decode, to a big, super modern corporate building in an industrial park. We have no appointments, so we just bowl up at the reception.

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  Kari asks the receptionist if we can see the Islandica Book people.

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  But there's a glitch that we hadn't counted on.

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  The lady at the reception desk tells us that the two researchers we need are on holidays for another two weeks. So unless we're prepared to track down these two people and ask them to interrupt their family holidays, which we're not, we'll just have to wait and hope they do come back to work before Kari and I have to leave Iceland.

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  In the meantime, Kari and I still have one last saga to tell.

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  And as it happens, it's a story about a father and a son.

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  And a very clever daughter.

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  Where are we going now, Kari?

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  We're off to Borg. We're going to the farm of the warrior poet Egil Skatla Gremsson. It's one of the first Viking settlements from Norway.

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  It's a windy afternoon here at Borg. The land is very green with lots of rocky ground and long grass. This is the farm that 1,100 years ago belonged to Egil Skatla Gremsson.

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  There was a man called Skatla Gremur, the son of Kvald Ulver. Ulver was the son of Bialve and Halpera, daughter of Ulver. She was the sister of Halbjörn Halftroll, the father of Keht. Skatla Gremur married Bera. She was Ingvar's daughter. Their son was called Egil.

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  Skatla Grem came to Iceland during the exodus from Norway. He was one of the chieftains who suffered at the hands of King Harald. When he came to Iceland, he had a family.

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  One of his sons, Thoroff, was fair, promising, handsome and mild mannered, popular with everyone.

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  Another one, Egil, took after his father. He was difficult, bad tempered, aggressive.

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  He was the ugliest man ever to live in Iceland.

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  But he had a way with words.

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  Didn't always help him. Early on in his life, when he was only six, Egil was invited to a ballgame near here.

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  And he got the worst of the game because he was playing against someone older than him. When he lost, he took a hatchet to his opponent's head. A battle ensued and many men died as a result of it. Naturally enough, Egil's father wasn't too pleased about the way this had gone. He could see that his son was taking after him and he chided him for it, but his mother said, "It's all right. Egil has all the signs of a good Viking. One day, we'll make sure he has a Viking ship of his own."

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  Eventually, the brothers left Iceland.

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  The two of them were conscripted into the army of King Athelstan of England and they fought at the Battle of Vinmoor. And there Thoroff perished after a valiant fight.

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  Egil sat at the king's table at the end of the battle, but he looked rather sullen. And the king looked along the table and said to Egil, "What troubles you?"

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  Egil brought up the matter of compensation for his dead brother and King Athelstan gave Egil two chests of English silver to take back to his father as compensation.

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  Egil returned to Iceland, but he overlooked the matter of the English silver and somehow managed to hold on to it himself. And he set up his farm here at Borg. He had a family and he had sons of his own.

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  To get timber in, you had to arrange it to come from Norway. And a ship of timber sat out in the fjord here. And the men on the farm were collecting the timber off the ship and bringing it back to the farm.

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  And one of Egil's boys, Bothfar, was watching them do it. And he asked if he could join them. Eventually, they said, "Yeah, come on, you can get in the boat." And they went out to the ship and a wind came up and wrecked their boat and Bothfar drowned.

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  Egil went down to the shore and picked up his son's body and took it to a burial mound.

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  And then he came back to the farm and went up to a chamber and locked himself in.

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  He would starve to death rather than live with the grief.

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  The household and his family sent a message to Ail's daughter, who lived to the north of here, and she returned to the farm and knocked on the door. She told her father that she'd rather die with him than live without her brother and her father.

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  Ail opened the door and said, "That's well spoken, daughter. Come in,

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  and we'll die together."

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  She said to him, "Before we die,

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  I think you should compose a verse for Bhavva.

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  You're a poet,

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  and he deserves a poem before we go."

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  Ail said, "Yes, I'll do that." His daughter said, "You'll need something to drink if you're going to do this properly." And she ordered some provisions and some water.

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  He drank the water down in one gulp, and then threw the cup on the floor and said, "We've been tricked.

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  It's milk."

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  She said, "Never mind. You compose the poem, and then we'll go on with our plan."

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  Ail began,

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  but he found it difficult to speak, difficult to come up with the words to do justice to his son. But eventually, the poem came to him, and through the rhythm of the words,

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  and through that side of himself that the words were able to reach, he recovered something of himself.

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  And by the end of the poem,

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  his daughter said to him, "This is too good to die with us. You must share it with the rest of the people in the house."

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  And Ail agreed.

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  And he went downstairs and he delivered the poem to everyone else. [Singing] Myg erum traegt tunga ahraira, edda loft ait leoedd bon dar. Esan o feinlegt op idurs tivi, nie haw draegt oor huggar fylksne.

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  Ail survived. He was able to go on, and he lived into old age. And eventually,

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  as he became decrepit and felt exposed,

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  he decided that he had to do something about those two chests of English silver.

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  First, he thought he would take it to the assembly and throw it on the ground and watch everyone scurrying for it. His family was appalled by this idea and persuaded him not to do it.

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  So instead, he took the chests of silver and two slaves for a walk

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  and buried the silver.

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  And the slaves never returned either.

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  People are still looking for that silver.

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  Ail's poem that he reads. Is that a poem that's embedded in the old pagan Viking culture?

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  Absolutely. The poem references Odin as the source of poetic craft, as the source of inspiration.

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  This is the old religion of Odin and Thor and Freya and Loki.

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  These are the Old Norse gods that the Icelanders brought with them from Norway, from the Viking world.

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  So how did Iceland become Christianized?

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  In the end, they decided democratically. They met at the parliament in the year 1000, and they asked the law speaker to decide on the country's behalf. And he took himself away, and for a whole day and a whole night, he sat on his own, under a blanket, contemplating the future of Icelandic religion. And he came out at the end of it all and he said, "We're going to adopt Christianity,

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  but pagan rituals can remain as long as you're not caught."

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  Very sensible, very sensible outcome.

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  So the saga writers, though, they're writing a couple of hundred years after these events take place. They're Christians writing these stories, though, aren't they?

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  And a lot of them probably were working and living in monasteries, so devout Christians, actually.

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  So many times when we've spoken about the sagas, there's a sense of balance of blood, there's vengeance in order to achieve justice. Christianity comes along, and Christians hate the idea of blood sacrifice. It's like crucifixion of Christ all over again. And that whole thing come to an end with Christianity then, that Viking idea of an eye for an eye, I'll take revenge.

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  The sagas witness a world that couldn't keep going, but you get a very strong feeling that the saga writers felt that their ancestors were better.

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  Right, so they're in awe of it.

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  They're in awe of this world that can't go on.

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  So these stories, that's how the saga writers meet their Viking ancestors then?

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  Absolutely. Through storytelling, they bring them alive.

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  Now we're back in Reykjavik, and we've only got about 48 hours before we have to leave Iceland. And we absolutely have to find an answer to this lingering mystery about Kari's ancestry.

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  The mystery of whether there is this ancestral connection between Kari and Snoddy Sturlson, the great saga author. So we're going back to Islandica Book today. I really hope those researchers are back from their holidays and that they're prepared to help us. All we need from them is to just officially connect Kari's name with his father's name. Then Kari will be able to enter the database and trace his family line and see if it leads all the way back to Snoddy.

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  The first time we went into Islandica Book, Kari said he was feeling a kind of dread about the whole thing. But not today.

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  Actually, now that we're getting closer to it, I'm actually really excited. I'm a little bit nervous.

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  When we started out and we were here in Reykjavik and we made our first visit to Islandica Book, I slightly dreaded going. And the reason was that I'd sort of put this stuff aside for a while after the kids were born. I didn't feel like I needed it as much anymore. But as we've travelled around the country and I've told you these stories, it's relaxed me immensely. I've actually felt very comfortable with the search, you know, that it's not a heavy thing.

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  And that, you know, I'm like so many people these days, you know, I'm a complicated mix of nationalities and allegiances and languages and parenthood and all those things.

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  And there's something about the saga stories that makes me feel good about that.

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  But at Islandica Book, the people who can help us are still away on holidays. But the woman at the front desk gives us the name of Decode's media officer, a man called Jon Gustafson. And he wants to help.

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  Jon tells us to leave it with him for an hour. So Kari and I go to a park across the road, and we wait for him to text us.

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  Decode, Islandica Book have been a bit fabulous, and they've just texted me asking me the name.

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  And birthdate of my father. So I've sent back that and now we're, I guess we're kind of waiting for a text, aren't we?

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  We waited for an hour and then we went back to our Reykjavik apartments. And then Jon Gustafsson sent Kari a text.

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  He says that they've now listed me in Icelandic book as Geisley's son. And funnily enough, I think that means more to me than than the search itself.

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  And.

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  Another text just arrived. What is it?

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  It's my username and my password.

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  So can you go on the internet and find find out now?

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  Right now, I'm doing it right as we talk. So my username is being typed in now.

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  And now we can type in Snodri. This is the big moment.

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  Director sent.

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  Director sent.

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  Director sent. There you are. And these are the names. So Snodri and then Thordis, born in 1205. Einar, born in 1227. Ounemt, unnamed, I like that, born in 1250. Ericur, born in 1277. Einar in 1320. Björn in 1350. Christine in 1374. Björn in 1408. Thyrider in 1430. Helga in 1465. Paul, 1500. Erlender, 1535. Margret, 1600. Erlender, 1635. Davydd, 1688. Guðmundur, 1710.

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  Malmfriddur, 1767. Pieter, 1804. Pieter again, 1852. Stænan, 1885. Frida, my grandmother, 1911. Geisley, my father, 1936. And then Kauri, me, 23 generations later. Now I can proudly say it means nothing.

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  Which is, that's, it was true.

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  It was true.

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  So we've been back in Australia for a couple of months now, Kari. Can I just say for me, that whole connection to Snodri, that was fun and fine. But for me, the most moving aspect of all that was actually seeing you brought properly into the book of Icelanders, along with your sons. No one loves Iceland more than you, Kari. And it's kind of like the moment that Iceland took you into itself.

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  Yeah, it's it's an incredibly warm feeling for me. Uh, it's a feeling of of continuity and belonging, you know, that this this feeling that you're part of something that you care about. And what it's shown me is that it isn't impossible. You know, however far away Iceland feels, it's there, it's within reach. Even Snodri, 800 years distant, is there. You know, you can reach him. And and for me, of course, that meant reaching him through through the hand of my father.

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  And that wasn't easy, you know, to take his hand again.

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  There's a couple of people we want to thank. Jon Gustafsson at the Decode.

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  My sister, Brenty, is geisladotte.

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  Gudrun Naudal at the Arni Magnusson Institute.

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  The Icelandic hot dogs.

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  Yes, we have to thank them. And also to Pam O'Brien.

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  And that's the last in the series Saga Land. If you missed any of the episodes, you can catch up online. Head to the Rewind homepage on the ABC Listen app or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Next time in Rewind, we'll bring you another great series from the recent archive. In Shooting the Past, historian Claire Wright takes a single photograph and unravels the rich and layered history within the image.

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  I think this is what I love about photographs, actually.

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  They're such a wonderful way of telling stories.

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  Every picture tells at least a thousand words, if not a whole history. I'm Claire Wright. Join me for Shooting the Past, where I freeze the frame on Australian history through eight extraordinary photographs.

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  It's a shocking image, but it's also got a positive gloss.

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  It does scream 1970s.

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  They provide you with the evidence for which you can interpret what has happened.

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  Eight intriguing photographs offer new insights into our history. It's our responsibility not to look away at photographs that make us feel uncomfortable.

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  So yes, a photograph like this warrants deeper contextualising, doesn't it? We're almost predicting the future in a photo like this because this is a freeze frame of what had been an open Australia.

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  That's Shooting the Past, 100 years of Australian history through a new lens.

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  That's Shooting the Past, next time here in ABC Rewind. I'm Hilary Harper and this has been a production for Radio National.

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  You've been listening to an ABC podcast. Discover more great ABC podcasts, live radio and exclusives on the ABC Listen app.