Egils Saga is a wonderful piece of literature of a proud family set in the Viking Age. It is the story of of families conflicts with the emerging Norwegian Royal family. It begins with the advance of Shaggy Harald (later Harald Finehair) across Norway, conquering all the many small kingdoms in an attempt to unify the country. This is not done out of some cultural ideology, but greed for power. This shows the first bit of insight as to how the people of the time, or at least how the author thought the people, viewed the land around them.

To the people of the Viking Age land was power, and the more land that one controlled, the more powerful one was. By controlling the whole of Norway, Harald was the most powerful person in the country. By placing certain trusted individuals in charge of the various districts, Harald could maintain his control. As a by-product, those who held the land for Harald became powerful also. This arrangement can be seen as a foreshadowing of the feudal system; the main difference being that the people of the lower end of the social scale were not permanently attached to the land upon which they lived. People could also move through the social ranks if they displayed skills that were useful to those above them socially. Thus someone with quick wits could advance to be adviser to the king even if that person came from the meanest farm. Theoretically this could even apply to a slave.

With the power that came with the acquisition of land also came wealth. Since money was a little known item in Scandinavia at that time, the barter system and the use of specific weights of precious metal were the two most common means of payment of goods with barter being the more common. If one held land, it could be used as the holder saw fit. Although farming was the most common use, people also looked for land that had other natural resources: streams and rivers with allot of fish, forested land for timber and game. Game would provide meat but more than that, it could provide furs that were considered a luxury item in many parts of southern Europe. These items could be bartered for either exotic or common food items, weapons or other luxury items. The more land one held, the more one had for use in trading.

A third aspect of the holding of land was independence. In many cases, if you held enough land you could be quite self-seficiant. This was the case for Egils grandfather, Kveldulf. He was a large land owner at the time of Shaggy Haralds advance. He was asked if he would join with Harald as Harald took control of the provence in which Kveldulf lived. Kveldulf replied that he would not join with the King as he saw no luck or honor coming to his family from the king. But on the other hand, neither would he stand against the king. This angered the king and he was ready to send men to kill Kveldulf when a kinsman of Kveldulf suggested that the king ask that one of Kveldulfs sons be sent. The king did this. The next summer, against his fathers better judgement, Thorolf Kveldulfsson went and became King Haralds man. Another option for those who wanted neither to become under the kings control or die was to flee.

Many of those that chose flight went to Iceland. Since the country was uninhabited, except for a few Irish hermit-monks who fled with the coming Norwegians, those that came were able to take as much land as they wished. Those that were in charge of the arriving group, such as Skallagrim Kveldulfsson, would then parcel out amounts of land to their followers. Most of these parcels would then be named by, and in many cases after, those who settled the lands. In cases where the land was not named for someone, it would be named for some aspect of that particular piece of land. For example: Skallagrim names his main farm "Borg" which means fort for the fort shaped rock that lies at that place, a headland farther up the narrow fjord called Borgarfjord was called Alftaness, meaning Swans ness for the swans that were captured there.

As the kings man Thorolf was given lands in northern Norway, in Halogaland. It was also his job to collect tribute from the Sami ( in the story they are called the Lapps). Here we get our first real physical description of the land. Finnmark is described as "...a vast country, with great fjords cutting deep into it right down the western seaboard, as well as to the north and all the way east. To the south lies Norway, but Finnmark stretches southwards through the mountains as much as Halogaland does by the coast. East of Namdalen lies Jamtland, then Helsingland, Kvenland, Finland and finally Karelia. But Finnmark, lying beyond, is more mountainous than any of these other lands and there are plenty of highland settlements there, some in valleys and some along the lakes. In Finnmark there are some amazingly big lakes with vast forests between them. A high mountain range called Kjolen stretches right through the country." As one can see, the passage not only gives a description of the physical nature, the large lakes, vast forests, and deep fjords, but it also gives an idea of the lay-out of regions. These regions would originally have naively given, but with Harald Finehairs seizure of the country, these would have become instituted regions.

Unfortunately, throughout the saga most descriptions of the land are very brief. Mostly it will be said what resources may be taken from the various areas; the types of fur-bearing animals, amount of fish in the rivers and streams ( teaming, great deal, few, etc.) and marine animals ( whales, seals, walrus, etc.)

Land ownership was inheritable. Because each person in a family would be entitled to some portion of the family land holdings it was very important to be able to show that ones birth was legitimate. If there was doubt, the person could be denied their portion of the inheritance by the new patriarch. In the case of relatives that lived outside the family farm, an inheritance of more movable items would be substituted for a share of the land. In Egils Saga this situation arises.

Kveldulf had a distant relative named Bjorgolf. When he was older, and a widower, he took a second wife in a "loose" marriage. This type of marriage is one in which a brides price is paid. The family members of the bride are not in favor of the union, but feel they have no way to stop the marriage. In most cases children born in a loose marriage are legitimate unless the witnesses to the union are dead or refuse to acknowledge that the payment was made. In the case of the sons to Bjorgolf by his second wife, when Bjorgolf died his eldest son, Brynjolf, denied that they had any right to a portion of their fathers inheritance. These two, called Hildiridarsons after their mother, made attempts to claim their inheritance again from their nephew Bard and from Thorolf Kveldulfsson who inherited from a childless Bard with permission from the king. The fact that Thorolf inherited property from their father, and that he also refused to hear their claim to a share of the inheritance infuriated them.

They did finally gain what they thought was theirs by slandering Thorolf to the king. Most of the property that Thorolf had control of was as a steward of the king. The king began to believe these slanders inspite of the referrals of other, more trusted, advisors. Finally, Harald stripped Thorolf of the stewardship and gave it to the Hildiridarsons. This eventually proved to be a mistake for Harald and fatal for Thorolf. This event truly sparks the feud between the family's of Kveldulf and Harald Finehair.

Throughout the rest of the saga land is spoken of in much the same manner: Physical descriptions very brief and the value of the land gaining a larger importance. Land descriptions do not have much to them by way of æscetics, but I do not believe that this has to do with a lack of an ability to see beauty in nature. My feeling is that the look of a flower or tree or stream was well known to the people of Norden, the seeing of beauty in them would have been of a more personal nature. Beauty was known in the culture as can be seen from artwork from the period and descriptions of women in the saga lean more toward beauty than "function". The lack of æscetic descriptions of the land are more just a part of the psyche of the author, or possibly of the people as a whole in the period