Egill Danielsson (The Kalmar Union)

Egill Danielsson
Timeline: The Kalmar Union

Portrait of Egill Danielsson
Born	30th April, 1761 Vestukvíslbae, Margirhaedeyja Fylk, Álengiamark
Died	8th July, 1815 Kittatindálur, Unamiland Fylk, Álengiamark
Profession	Priest, Author

Egill Danielsson was a Álengsk priest and novellist. His 1799 novel Haraldur Eyþórsson is regarded as one of the finest works in Álengsk.

Born in 1761 in Vestukvíslbae, Margirhaedeyja Fylk, to a military family, Danielsson was apparently an imaginative but unruly child. His father was killed during the Second Mexic-Leifian War and Danielsson and his three sisters were subsequently brought up by his uncle, Magnus, a deacon of Yrsakavelyk cathedral. Danielsson would follow his uncle into the clergy.

Ill-health, possibly tuberculosis, appeared to dog his early career and his uncle's influence got him the sleepy parish of Nesquehónstaðr in Unamiland Fylk which would less of burden 'than a busy city parish'. Nesquehónstaðr is now prosperous as an anthracite mining town but in Danielsson's day it and its nearby villages were small mountain communities, Catholic but mostly Leni-speaking and overall desperately poor. The mountain air seems to have dispersed whatever ailed him and Danielsson ploughed his energies into improving his parish, building a new road which could take carriages and establishing a school to lift literacy. The church land under his control was not particularly good farmland so he had to find other means of income and so turned to writing; firstly political tracts detailing the challenges of building a united Álengiamark out of its disparate parts and then novels, most of which took on a comic or satirical hue.

As befitting an ordained priest his works were full of anti-Lutheran rhetoric however on a personal level he was more accepting of religious differences. He corresponded regularly with many contemporary writers such as the novelists August Justander and Sophie Carlén, the latter being 'notoriously atheist'.

The Brief History of Haraldur Eyþórsson

The Brief History of Haraldur Eyþórsson is a comic novel in eight parts. The novel is ostensibly the life story of the narrator, the titular Haraldur Eyþórsson, but in telling his story he goes on wild tangents about his wealthy land-owning family, their manor house's staff and the quirks of their neighbours and, as a result, barely features in his own story at all.

The novel, parts 1 to 3 appearing in 1799, was an instant success, and with his income more secure he could pay off his debts, buy some better quality land for dairy farming in the valleys to the east (which he would eventually bequeath to his sister Eyrún). The next five parts of the novel would appear at regular intervals interspersed with other works. It was quickly translated for other countries too, becoming very popular in Vinland, Wessex, Anglia, the Francian and German states.

Danielsson appeared slightly bemused by the reaction to the novel and occasionally frustrated; 'I toil to produce a novel of original ideas with a start, a middle and an end point, it is lauded, and then the immediate question is when shall we hear more of Haraldur?' Still, it afforded him a comfortable life and he would make yearly trips to St. Hafdiss, and the university town of Reyrvatnstadh where he was a popular figure in the literary circle there.

In 1811 his tuberculosis returned and he would be obliged to give up the day to day work at Nesquehónstaðr, becoming almost bedridden at the farmstead at Kittatindálur. There he produced a copious amount of correspondence with fellow writers, clergy and politicians. He would dictate three more novels, culminating in the markedly more serious The Upstart which he regarded as his finest work and had begun plotting out a 'silly rural romance' when he died in 1815. He would be buried in Nesquehónstaðr, before being reburied almost a hundred years later in the 'Writers Corner' in St. Hafdiss Cathedral.