! Assembly of The Elder Troth - Remeberance Day for Egil Skallagrimsson !

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Just as with many organisations and faiths, the Assembly of The Elder Troth too has special days and events which are celebrated by many Asatruar. The links below provide a list of months and the events that you will find occur during those months. We hope you find the information both informative and useful.

From Living Asatru: A handbook of Simple Celebrations by Stephen A. McNallen, 1993.
Edited and adapted by Rurik Grimnisson, Shope and Steersman of the A.E.T. Inc.1996.

Day of Rememberance for Egil Skallagrimsson

December 8th

Viking Egil Skallagrimsson was a rare synthesis of action and introspection, of daring and thoughtful complexity.

How do we explain such a man? Violent to an extreme when angered, he took his first life at age six, slaying another child who, he felt, had wronged him in a ball game. A broad shouldered man, taller than most, craggy and harsh of feature, Egil was a ferocious fighter who met every inch of the viking image. Odin was his God, and the blood of berserks and shape-shifters ran in his family. His lust for gold and fame drove him from land to land, from one adventure to the next, in a powerful saga that some consider the best in Icelandic literature.

Thus described, Egil meets our sensibilities as a brute, a bloodthirsty beast by today's milder standards. But wait! This same man was passionately moved by love of his friends, and was open-handed in generosity to those who found his favour. The cold heart of the warrior was torn when tragedy took his sons, and in his lament he left us the unforgettable poem "Sonatorrek". The brain which directed axe-blows and composed stratagems likewise seethed with poetry and expressed it with a skill that calmed the anger of hostile kings; Odin's inspiration could be expressed in rhyme and meter as well as in berserk fury and splintered shields.

Egil Skallagrimsson lived a life of the sword and of poetry - called "Odin's word sword" by the skalds. To say that he was a most remarkable man, deserving of our memory, is an understatement.

How shall we give him this memory?

Read! Iceland is the world's most literate country, and even in Egil's time the sagas were valued as much as alcohol and a fire in the hearth. If you haven't read Egil's Saga or at least excerpts from it, this is your chance. The Prose Edda or the Poetic Edda are just right, too.
Write! Egil was a great poet. While you probably can't match his style, you can compose something that pleases and fulfils you. The subject could be Egil, or Odin, or the Vikings - or something else that stirs your feeling and gives you a chance to taste at least the spilled leavings of Odin's poetic mead.
Speaking of mead, why not drink, or better, brew some. Mead is its own justification, but if you need an excuse you can note the connection, in Indo-European religious life, between alcohol and the divine inspiration.
Play ball. It's doubtful there's a viking ball league in your town, but a sandpit session of almost any kind will put you in the robust athletic mood prized by Egil and his contemporaries. There's a famous incident in the saga of Egil that involves a ball game, of course, but you don't have to go to the extremes our hero did on that day...
Invent kennings, those colourful metaphors that fill viking poetry. If the sea becomes the "whale road" and a warrior is a "tree of battle", what are your car, refrigerator, and computer?
Egil was a skilled runemaster. Learn some runes - enough to write your name if you're a novice, or find a tougher challenge if you've been around the runic realm some while.

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