Egil's Saga Ch.1-48

Although a little difficult to keep the many characters straight, this saga was very entertaining to me. I enjoyed the history of Egils family, the introduction to the first Vikings to settle Iceland, and also the interactions between the characters themselves and with King Harald and then his son King Eirik. There are many strong characters, some stubborn and jealous, some clever, and some who would do anything to please the king. I thought it was interesting that the saga was first recorded by Snorri Sturluson and that he was a decendant of Egil.
I noticed a couple themes. One was what I took as superstition, although it may have been a religious practice. I noticed this when the saga told about Skallagrim and Bera's children. They said they had many but the first ones all died. Then when they had another son, they sprinkled him with water and he was named Thorolf. When they had their next son Egil, he was also sprinkled with water. When Bjorn and Thora had a daughter named Asgerd, she was also sprinkled with water. I don't know why they did this, but it seemed to me to be a superstitious thing since the family started to do it after the first children died.
The next theme I noticed was that many people were said to be "well versed in the magic arts." This was the first time I remember reading this in any sagas so I thought it was worth noting.
Also, another theme I noticed was intuition where people mentioned that they didn't think something would go over well. For example when Thorolf announced to his father that he was going to make another journey abroad that summer, his father didn't want him to go and said, "but I have an intuition that if we part now we will never meet again." There were other instances of intuitions as well.
Characteristics of Egil were cleverness, greedy, bad tempered, stubborn, jealous and he was also a good poet. He was ugly, but was said to be extremely strong. His mother showed affection for him when she attributed his first killing when he was very young. He was much like his father Skallagrim, who was also ugly, very strong, a good poet, stubborn, and disrespected the kings. However, his father resented Egil and more favored his other son Thorolf who seemed more accomplished and probably more mature to his father.