When Egill was born, in 910, it was immediately obvious that he would grow up to be extremely ugly, very stong and very much alike his father. Egill was a witty child and talked a lot. He was very bad-tempered and couldn't stand to loose. We will now give some examples of this:

The parents of the other kids taught their children always to see to it that they were beaten by Egill in games so that he wouldn't get crazy.

Early it was clear that Egill wasn't nice when he got drunk. He used to get drunk from early age, at least his father said that Egill was naughty when sober but untolerable when drunk. Egill was three years old when his father said this!

When Egill was three years old he made his first poem.

An example of Egil's temper is when he killed his play-mate, Grimur Heggsson, after having lost against Grimur in a play. Egill was almost seven years old then. At eleven he killed his father's favourite workman as a revenge after his father had killed Thordur, Egil's best friend. In order to get to Norway with his brother Thorolfur he cut the ropes of Thorolfur's ship when the weather was very bad and the ship was almost wrecked. After that Thorolfur let Egill come with him to Norway. Egill was then 15 years old. When Egill came to Norway he got a bit more quiet and learnt to control his temper.

Egill three years old at a party with his grandfather (very drunk!)