This paper examines what two major Icelandic sagas — Egil's Saga and The Saga of Grettir the Strong — reveal about Viking-age Scandinavian society. Drawing on textual evidence from both works, the paper explores themes including the culture of honor and blood feuds, land ownership by force, the role of competitive strength, early legal institutions such as the All-Thing, and the pervasive belief in supernatural forces. The analysis argues that the sagas, while foregrounding heroic deeds and battles, also serve as cultural documents that illuminate how Norse people organized their communities, resolved disputes, and understood their world.
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The Saga of Grettir the Strong and Egil's Saga tell us much about life in Scandinavia at the time they describe and about the culture that produced these works. In this regard, they are similar to other epics and sagas that convey information about the life of the past, from the Homeric epics through Virgil, Beowulf, El Cid, and many others. The plots may emphasize heroic actions and great battles, but at a more basic level the sagas tell us how the people lived, how they related to the world, and what they thought about the world in which they lived.
The characters in Egil's Saga live in a brutish world where they must fight almost constantly to survive and protect themselves and their kin. The rules of conscience as we know them today do not apply to characters such as Egil, who commits his first murder at the age of six and who is noted and honored for the ruthlessness with which he conducts his affairs. The values of the Vikings center on a sense of honor, the maintenance of order within a kingdom, the continuation of a hierarchy, and the all-embracing need to further the interests of society in terms of security and economy. These values operated in an environment of violence, plunder, and the destruction of enemies, and they can be seen as reflective of the world that formed them.
Egil's story includes a number of related narratives that describe much about Viking life. The Vikings were settlers and conquerors, and this process is apparent in the story of Egil Skallagrim. He first explored the region of Borgarfjord and then laid claim to a huge area, selecting for himself a certain tract of farmland where the coffin of his dead father had washed ashore after he had thrown it overboard as an omen. He parcelled out the rest of the area to various kinsmen and dependents who had sailed with him from Norway so they could create their own farmsteads. This land was always freehold, with no question of tenancy or feudal dues. In the beginning the settlers would live by foraging, and eventually by their sheep and cattle. It is apparent that the people were highly dependent on the abilities and largesse of the ruler, and much of the code of conduct that evolved was related to this fact.
In this world, the outsider was the enemy, and a degree of brutality and ruthlessness was necessary to maintain order and to achieve success in acquiring land and riches for the benefit of the leader and his people. Warfare required swift and authoritative decisions, and command in time of threat was the function of the leaders, whose wartime authority necessarily spilled over into times of peace as well.
This was an egalitarian society to the degree that it was possible for a man to rise from the lower ranks to the higher through force of arms, and the son of a king had to prove himself just as any other contender would. The actions undertaken by the different leaders in Egil's Saga reflect this belief in force of arms. The competitive spirit is evident throughout the text, as Skallagrim's dedication to contests demonstrates:
"Skallagrim took great pleasure in trials of strength and competitive sports, and always enjoyed talking about them. Ball-games were a common sport in those days and there were plenty of strong men about, though none proved more powerful than Skallagrim. But he was beginning to grow old" (Egil's Saga 93).
In the world of the Vikings, stability was only as manageable as the power of the local leader could make it. The prime ambition of the individual was to increase the fortune and fame of his family, and a man's first duty was to defend the family honor against the greed and affronts of others. The honor of the family might be challenged at any time over any pretext — the size of a dowry, the theft of a sheep, the rights to a stranded whale. A challenge demanded satisfaction, and this led to blood feuds that were part of the normal pattern of Norse life. Egil's Saga consists of a large number of such feuds, often with the participation of the ruler. Sometimes the cause of a feud was a matter of genuine importance, as when Egil kills Berg-Onund:
"When Harald Fine-Hair was getting on in years, he appointed King Eirik overlord of all his other sons, and when Harald had ruled for seventy years he handed over all his power to his son, King Eirik... After he died there was bitter feuding between his sons, since the men of Oslofjord took Olaf as their king while the men of Trondlang chose Sigurd" (Egil's Saga 142).
In other instances the causes are far more trivial:
"Eyvind and Thorvald had one horn, Alf and Thorfinn the other. As the evening wore on, they began to cheat over their drinks, then they started squabbling and finally there was a slanging-match. Suddenly Eyvind jumped up, pulled out his short-sword and made such a thrust with it that he gave Thorvald a gaping death-wound" (Egil's Saga 114).
In both cases, the feud seems to have as much value as a form of entertainment as it does as a means of settling issues, and the two sides involved are always clearly trying to prove their power and ability in order to rule, whether that rule extends over a nation or a small area of land.
"Grettir as a hero shaped by fear and force"
"Whale dispute, fines, and community justice"
"Glam the shepherd and belief in the undead"
Both sagas together suggest a society trying to succeed in a very dangerous world, surrounded by enemies real and imagined. The action in the sagas is heightened by great battles and daring deeds, which were probably part of the world of the Icelandic people at the time, but the sagas also illuminate the mode of life of those people and how they coped with their difficulties and the dangers they faced.
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