Egil, an archer in Heaven

The lid was composed of three side-to-side bone segments, only the middle one of which has survived. As the outer edges of it do not bear any runes and as the carving did not extend beyond the upper and lower border there will never have been an inscription. The missing segments will have been plain and covered with silver fittings. The rune master may have shrunk from commenting on the realm of the fierce god - a taboo, so to say - just as he had already encoded his words on the realm of death.

Though this panel is only a part of the once-lid, it seems as if it is the complete picture. It covers the entire breadth of the casket, so we can be sure that there was no inscription at all. To the top and bottom there is a clear borderline. If the plain bone plate framing the picture had been covered with rolled silver, it may have been decorated with silver shields, rendering the roof of Valhall.

So there is just the word Ægili¹, the name of a once famous archer who in the course of saga tradition eventually became a Wayland brother, - may be as early as here. There is no myth of him in Valhall reported. The god Ull² would have been a perfect archer instead, but the rune master needed the rune (standing for resistance), which may have helped Egil to his unexpected apotheosis as Ægili.

Though his origin is uncertain it is unlikely that he should be identical with Achilles, the Greek hero, who himself fell victim to an arrow. It looks as if the similarity of the rune with the Greek letter chi had inspired the interpretation.The i-auslaut (in final position) is unusual, but does not indicate some genitive form, it is rather put for numeric reasons.
If in the literature³ reference is made to the Greek Heros Achilles, which can be appropriate from the point of view of sound change, then the contextual justification is missing. This however results from our interpretation ( Æ - panel (The Lid) - The Pleiades and the Cycle of the Year), according to which this archer Egil symbolizes the summer constellation (sic!) "Sagittarius". In traditional zodiac depictions, the centaur Cheiron stands here, who taught the young Achilles the archery.

¹ Egil is a legendary hero of the Völundarkviða and the Thidreks saga. The name is from Proto-Germanic *Agilaz[1], and the same legend is reflected in Anglo-Saxon Ægil of the Franks Casket and Alamannic Aigil of the Pforzen buckle.
The Proto-Germanic form of the legend may only be guessed at, but it appears likely that Egil was a renowned archer who defended a keep together with his wife Aliruna, against numerous attackers. The testimony of the Pforzen buckle is uncertain beyond naming Aigil and Ailrun, possibly adding that they fought a battle at the Ilz river. The Franks Casket shows the scene of Aegil and his wife enclosed in the keep, with Aegil shooting arrows against attacking troops. Contents