Egils Saga Part 1

While reading Egils Saga a few points and attributes stood out to me. First of all, in the very beginning of the saga, someone (who I don’t remember his name) died, and his wife decided to marry his brother. It didn’t sound to me like she had any grief over her dead husband. Understandably, those were different times, and remarrying after your spouse has died was probably a good idea. Marriage meant that you are not to only person running to household. Perhaps the wife thought that marrying her spouses’ brother might be having her husband back, if certain traits run in the family. Another point that stood out to me is that Egil is essentially a roving bandit. He is raiding merchants, towns, farmers, etc. This reminded me of an article that we read in Econ 198 last semester discussing the economics of roving bandits vs. a horrible tyrant. From an economics point of view, the tyrant (or king) is better off for the people, While bandits are very bad. Bandits would take everything and leave the farmer with virtually nothing, this is necessary for the bandits to continue living their lifestyle. While the Tyrant has taxes BUT he cannot overtax and take too much away from the people or he will have less to take from the people later when they recover. So from an economics stand point Egil is doing the exact thing that should not happen for economic growth and prosperity in Iceland.