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The parsonage Borg is situated a short distance
northeast of the small town Borgarnes. During Catholic times the
churches there were dedicated to the archangel Michael. The present
church was consecrated in 1880, but the first one in 1003. The settler
Skalla-Grimur Kveldulfsson built his farm there and others elsewhere
in the Borgarfiord area. His son, Egill, the so-called last Viking,
continued his father’s work. Egill was a brave man, scrimpy and a
good poet. Once he was seized by his worst enemy, King Erich Blood Axe,
and had to compose a laudatory poem to soothe Erich's anger to save
his head.
The second time he faced death, this
time voluntarily, after having lost two of his sons, one
drowned and the other died from a disease, his daughter
convinced him to compose a poem to vent
his sorrow instead of starving himself to death.
Skallagrimur's burial mound is where the small park in the
town Borgarnes is situated now. All of this and more can be
read in the so-called Egil's Saga.
According to the Laxdaela Saga, its hero, Kjartan Olafsson, lies
buried in the cemetery at Borg. Snorri Sturluson, the country's most
powerful chieftain of the 12th century and its most revered historian,
married the priest’s daughter at Borg and started the accumulation
of his wealth by that marriage. They divorced in 1206 and Snorri moved
to Reykholt. The memorial Sonatorrek (Grief), by sculptor Asmundur Sveinsson,
was unveiled at Borg in 1985 to commemorate Egill Skalla-Grimsson and
the poem he composed after his sons' deaths.
The above
mentioned Sagas are available in several foreign languages and some of
them read like exciting novels. |