Name Þorvaldr veili | ||
Þorvaldr (inn) veili ("the Ailing") was an Icelandic skald who lived in the last part of the 10th century.
The Brennu-Njals saga relates the circumstances of his death. Þorvaldr was pagan and opposed the conversion to Christianity. According especially to Snorri Sturluson's Olafs saga Tryggvasonar, he had composed defamatory verses (nið) about Þangbrandr, a missionary sent to Iceland by Olafr Tryggvason. When Þangbrandr arrived in his area, in Grimsnes, Þorvaldr gathered a troop to slay him and his companion Guðleifr Arason. But the priest was forewarned and Þorvaldr was eventually killed:
Thangbrand shot a spear through Thorwald, but Gudleif smote him on the shoulder and hewed his arm off, and that was his death.As he was setting his trap, Þorvaldr had asked the skald Ulfr Uggason to lend him assistance against the "effeminate/sodomitic wolf to the [pagan] gods" (argr goðvargr), but Ulfr refused to be involved. This request, which takes the form of a lausavisa, is all that survives of his work. But according to Snorri's Hattatal, he was also the author of a drapa about the story of Sigurðr. This drapa was remarkable for being refrainless (steflaus) and composed in a variant of skjalfhent.