Myrmannaætta

Myrmannaætta (also Mýramenn, Old Norse: Men of the Swamps) was a family clan of Mýrasýsla, who had some prominence in the Icelandic Commonwealth of the tenth century and linked with the powerful Aurlandsætta of Sogn (Norway) who also had ties in the British Isles. Decades later the clan claimed their ancestry to the same Egil Skallagrímson, among them the scythe Einarr Skúlason. Other characters who had ties to the mýramenn were Kjartan Ólafsson and Snorri Sturluson.

At the XIV International Saga Conference in Upsala (2009) an argument was presented on the causes of this family claim. On the one hand, the alleged defects of Egil, ugly and ungovernable, face the virtues of family success for the pride and strength that identifies the clan drawing a heroic past to justify and save the existence of contemporary Mýramenn Einarr; an attempt to explain differences within the family with to a mixed ethnic background.

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