Olvir Hnufa - Viking Career

Viking Career

Olvir and Eyvind joined their nephew Thorolf Kveldulfsson on a number of Viking expeditions after the latter received a longship as a gift from his father Kveldulf. They gained a great deal of profit from such voyages. At a thing in Gaular, Olvir fell in love with Solveig Atladottir, the daughter of a jarl in Fjordane named Atli the Slender. The jarl refused Olvir permission to marry the girl, but he was so smitten that he abandoned his Viking life to be near her. A skald of some talent, he composed a number of love poems for Solveig. For reasons not revealed in Egil's Saga, but probably related to his courtship of Solveig, Olvir was attacked and nearly killed in his home by Solveig's brothers shortly after King Harald of Vestfold's conquest of Møre. Atli did not long survive this encounter; after Harald Fairhair conquered Møre and Fjordane he assigned the governance of the former to Rognvald Eysteinsson and the latter to Hákon Grjótgarðsson. Hákon and Atli soon came into conflict over Sogn and fought a battle at Fjalir in Stafaness Bay, in which Hakon was killed. Atli was severely wounded in the battle and taken to a nearby island, where he died.

Read more about this topic:  Olvir Hnufa

Famous quotes containing the words viking and/or career:

    Rice and peas fit into that category of dishes where two ordinary foods, combined together, ignite a pleasure far beyond the capacity of either of its parts alone. Like rhubarb and strawberries, apple pie and cheese, roast pork and sage, the two tastes and textures meld together into the sort of subtle transcendental oneness that we once fantasized would be our experience when we finally found the ideal mate.
    John Thorne, U.S. cookbook writer. Simple Cooking, “Rice and Peas: A Preface with Recipes,” Viking Penguin (1987)

    John Brown’s career for the last six weeks of his life was meteor-like, flashing through the darkness in which we live. I know of nothing so miraculous in our history.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)