THE SCENE: There are famous stand stands, and then there’s the poetry-reciting, head-splitting, stuffing-your-own-guts-back-into-your-belly famous last stand from Gisli Sursson’s saga.
THE TEXT: A man named Svein was the first to attack Gisli, but Gisli struck at him, cleft him through the shoulder-blades and threw him off the edge of the crag. The others began to wonder where this man’s capacity for slaughter was going to end.
They looked for a plan – none among them would flee to save his own life. So they went at him in two flanks, and headed the attack with Eyjolf were two of his kinsmen, Thorir and Thord. Both were excellent fighters. The battle was fierce and they succeeded in wounding Gisli in several places with their spears, but he defended himself with great courage and strength, and they faced such an onslaught of rocks and powerful blows that none escaped being wounded. When Gisli struck out he never missed. Now Eyjolf and his kinsmen saw that their names and their honour were at stake, and they attacked harder than every, thrusting at him with their spears until guts spilled out. Gisli gathered them up together in his shirt, and bound them with a cord.
Then he told them to hold off a while. “The end you wanted will come,” he said.
Then he spoke a verse:
“I greet the sword’s honed edge
that bites into my flesh,
knowing that this courage
was given to me by my father.”
This was Gisli’s last verse. As soon as he had spoken it, he jumped off the crag and drove his sword into the head of Eyjolf’s kinsman, Thord, and split him down to the waist. In doing so, Gisli fell down on top of him and breathed his last.
Everyone in Eyjolf’s party was badly wounded, and Gisli had died with so many and such great wounds that it was an amazement to all. They say that he never once retreated, and as far as anyone could see his last blow was no weaker than his first.
– Gisli Sursson’s Saga, 13th Century AD
[Image Credit: Gisli’s Last Stand by Celia Lowenthal — https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/clowenthal/gislis-last-stand/]
