Egill's bones

[memegarden]

Egill Skallagrimsson almost certainly had a bone disorder called Paget's Disease, which would account for a number of his bizarre characteristics, physical and temperamental.

Comments

Egil's bones

[zzambrose]

Hey, thanks. I had seen several summaries of this article but I don't think I ever read the whole thing. The idea of academics from several specialties feuding to the death over their interpretations of the Sagas is almost as entertaining as the article.
-zzambrose

[corvideye]

Yep, that was where I got a bunch of the material for Norse of Course. It's one of the most plausible examples I've seen of the "explain a historical person's oddities by assigning them a disease" phenomenon (in this case, I think they're right; in some cases, it can be frustratingly reductive).