Þorvaldr (inn) veili ("the Ailing") was an

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

ic skald who lived in the last part of the 10th century. The '' Brennu-Njáls saga'' relates the circumstances of his death. Þorvaldr was pagan and opposed the conversion to Christianity. According especially to Snorri Sturluson's '' Ólafs saga Tryggvasonar'', he had composed defamatory verses ('' níð'') about Þangbrandr, a missionary sent to Iceland by

Óláfr Tryggvason Olaf Tryggvason (960s – 9 September 1000) was King of Norway from 995 to 1000. He was the son of Tryggvi Olafsson, king of Viken (Vingulmark, and Rånrike), and, according to later sagas, the great-grandson of Harald Fairhair, first King of No ...

. When Þangbrandr arrived in his area, in Grímsnes, Þorvaldr gathered a troop to slay him and his companion Guðleifr Arason. But the priest was forewarned and Þorvaldr was eventually killed: :Thangbrand shot a spear through Thorwald, but Gudleif smote him on the shoulder and hewed his arm off, and that was his death. : : ::—''The Story of Burnt Njal'' (98)
Dasent's translation
As he was setting his trap, Þorvaldr had asked the skald Úlfr Uggason to lend him assistance against the "effeminate/sodomitic wolf to the

agan The Agan (russian: Аган) is a river in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug in Russia. It is long, and its basin covers . Course The Agan is a left tributary of the Tromyogan, of the Ob basin. To the south of its course lies the basin of the Vat ...

gods"Sayers, William. Onomastic Paronomasia in Old Norse: Technique, Context, and Parallels. ''Tijdschrift voor Skandinavistiek''. 2006 (27). (''argr goðvargr''), but Úlfr refused to be involved. This request, which takes the form of a ''

lausavísa In Old Norse poetry and later Icelandic poetry, a ''lausavísa'' (pl. ''lausavísur'') is a single stanza composition, or a set of stanzas unconnected by narrative or thematic continuity. Lausavísur are often introduced in the text of sagas ...

'', is all that survives of his work. But according to Snorri's '' Háttatal'', he was also the author of a ''

drápa A skald, or skáld (Old Norse: , later ; , meaning "poet"), is one of the often named poets who composed skaldic poetry, one of the two kinds of Old Norse poetry, the other being Eddic poetry, which is anonymous. Skaldic poems were traditionally ...

'' about the story of

Sigurðr Sigurd ( non, Sigurðr ) or Siegfried (Middle High German: ''Sîvrit'') is a legendary hero of Germanic heroic legend, who killed a dragon and was later murdered. It is possible he was inspired by one or more figures from the Frankish Merovin ...

. This ''drápa'' was remarkable for being refrainless (''steflaus'') and composed in a variant of '' skjálfhent''.

Notes

External links

Þorvaldr's ''lausavísa''
999 deaths 10th-century Icelandic poets Year of birth unknown {{Iceland-bio-stub