Sacred Texts  Legends & Sagas  Iceland  Index  Previous  Next 

THE FOREIGN VOYAGE OF ERLING WRY-NECK.

         Erling hight the son of Kyrping-Worm and Ragnhilda the daughter of Sveinki Steinar's son.  Kyrping-Worm was a son of Sweyn, Sweyn's son, Erlend's son of Gerdi.  The mother of Worm was Ragna a daughter of earl Worm Eilif's son, and Ingibjorg the daughter of earl Finn Arni's son.  The mother of earl Worm was Ragnhilda a daughter of earl Hacon the mighty.  Erling was a wise man and a great friend of king Ingi, and with his advice Erling got to wife Christine the daughter of king Sigurd and queen Malmfrid.  Erling had his home at Studla in South Hordeland.  Erling fared out of the land and with him Eindrid the young and many more liegemen still;  they had picked crews.  They busked them to fare to Jewry and fared west across the sea to the Orkneys.  The leader of that voyage was earl Rognvald-Kali and along with him bishop William.  And they had in all out of the Orkneys fifteen ships.  First they sailed to the Southern isles (sic.) and thence west to France;  and afterwards by that way which king Sigurd Jewry-farer had fared out to Nörva-Sound, and they harried far and wide in heathen Spain.  A little after they had sailed through the Sound Eindrid the young parted from them, and those who followed him, with six ships, and they fared to Micklegarth.  But earl Rognvald and Erling and their men fell on a Dromond alone on the sea, and ran up to her with nine ships and fought against them.  But at last they ran their war-snakes under the Dromond;  then the heathen men hurled down on them weapons and stones and pots full of boiling pitch and oil.  Erling lay with his ship nearest in under the Dromond, and the shower of weapons of the heathen fell beyond that ship.  Erling and his men hewed holes in the Dromond, some below under water, some up on the sides, so that they got in there.  So says Thorbjorn Wrynick-Skald in Erling's Dirge.

         "Fearless then the Northmen bold

         Hewed with axe-edge gaps in hold;

         That was daring!  while the wights

         Who sate the eagles (1) saw strange sights,

         As they gazed down on each stroke

         That fell on iron binding oak;

         Till the skimmer of the seas

         Felt the shock in all her knees."

Audun the red was the name of that man, Erling's bowman, who first boarded the Dromond.  They won the Dromond, and slew there countless men;  and took very much goods;  and won a splendid victory.  Earl Rognvald and Erling, who was afterwards called "wry-neck," came in that voyage to Jewry-land, and out as far as the river Jordan.  Then they turned back from abroad across the sea, and fared to Micklegarth.  There they left their ships.  They fared from abroad the landway, and held on safe and sound till they came to Norway.  And their voyage was very much praised.  Erling was thought afterwards a much greater man than before, both for his journey and for his wedding.  He was a sage in wit, wealthy, and great in his kinsmen, and a good speaker;  he leant most in all friendship to king Ingi of all those brothers.

6.      To ch. 99. (ch. 20 of king Ingi's Saga, from the Hkr, Hulda, and Hrokkin-skinna).