Egill’s Grief: Poetry and Odin

Poetic account: a skaldic poem, set in a saga, has a grieving father quarrel with Odin and then make peace with what the god gave him.

Sonatorrek, “the irreparable loss of sons”, is attributed to the Icelandic skald Egill Skallagrímsson, who lived in the tenth century. In it he mourns two sons: Gunnarr, who died of a fever, and Böðvarr, who drowned in a storm. He struggles to find words, remembers his dead parents and brother, and rages at the sea-powers Ægir and Rán. Then he turns on Odin, a god he says had been his friend until the friendship broke. In the end he names two gifts that Odin did give him: the craft of poetry, and the ability to make deceivers into open enemies. The poem closes with Egill calmly awaiting death, whom it pictures as the goddess Hel.

What is recorded: the saga, not the poem, supplies the story of its making. After Böðvarr’s burial Egill shuts himself in his bed-chamber meaning to starve, and his daughter Þorgerðr persuades him to compose a memorial poem. The poem itself speaks of Odin as a god whose friendship ended and whose gifts remained.

What is not recorded: whether Egill composed it as the saga says, or whether the saga’s author shaped the setting. Nothing here shows what ordinary people believed about Odin, and the poem is not evidence for any afterlife. Interpretations differ. The Cambridge ASNC page reads the sons as symbolically offered to Odin, with poetry as recompense and a restored sense of poetic justice. Wikipedia notes that Egill’s grief may be modelled on Odin’s mourning for Baldr. Both are readings, not facts. Scholars such as Peter Hallberg and Carolyne Larrington have praised the poem’s personal, psychological depth.