Week Twelve: Egil's Saga, ch.49-89

Now that I've read about Egil's entire life, what stands out the most to me is how long it is!! So much happens in his life, and I started wondering if Snorri combined elements of other heroes' lives into this one penultimate hero, to make his life more exciting. But for one person to see that much in one lifetime is just crazy. Maybe the saga just seems so long because it does cover many generations, and Egil's stories did not begin until halfway through. Either way, it's very long. I am also curious about how any person could remember the details of this story and repeat it for the few hundred years between its occurrence and when it was written down. People in oral cultures are supposed to have superior memory, but to remember the finite details of Egil's Saga and be able to repeat it must have been an amazing feat.

For my stanza to read in class, I chose the last stanza of the poem Egil calls 'The Loss of My Sons'. It is about his sadness over so many deaths, and his outlook on waiting for his own death. I thought it was odd since Egil and Thorgerd just tried to commit suicide, that he in poetry would then say he is willing to wait for his own death. And then "Egil began to recover his spirits as he proceeded to compose the poem" (158) about death?! Odd person, if you ask me.