McDougall, Ian. Discretion and Deceit

• Author: McDougall, Ian
• Title: Discretion and deceit: a re-examination of a military strategem in Egils saga
• Published in: The Middle Ages in the North-West
• Editors: Tom Scott, Pat Starkey
• Place, Publisher: Oxford: Leopard’s Head Press in conjunction with Liverpool Centre for Medieval Studies
• Year: 1995
• Pages: 109-42
• E-text:
• Reference: McDougall, Ian. "Discretion and deceit: a re-examination of a military strategem in Egils saga." The Middle Ages in the North-West, pp. 109-42. Eds. Tom Scott, Pat Starkey. Oxford: Leopard’s Head Press in conjunction with Liverpool Centre for Medieval Studies, 1995.

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• Key words: topography (staðfræði)

Annotation

On the tent-ruse story in Egils saga and its implications for the topography of the elusive site of the Battle of Brunanburh. The ruse-story in Egils saga has a number of literary analogues but no exact parallels in historical or literary sources, although the ploy of stalling for time by pretending to negotiate for peace (while in fact sending for reinforcements) is a recognised motif. McDougall argues that the saga's topographical description of the terrain at Vínheiðr serves the narrator's purpose in setting the stage for the ruse and that these topographical details may have been orally transmitted as an integral part of the story of the tents. He points out, however, that one must examine the nature, motives and focus of a text when considering its value as source material. Egils saga is a purely literary source and thus differs from historical sources such as Anglo-Saxon land charters. Ultimately, onomastic or archaeological evidence must provide the clues to localise Brunanburh, not the saga.

References

"in his deployment of these details it is the narrator who emerges as the clever strategist, for each scrap of topographical description is included not to identify the site, but in order to make the tent-ruse story work"

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