Skafnörtung Skinfint

Gautreks saga begins with one explanation of Gautrek's strangeness, relating how Gautrek's father-to-be, King Gauti of West Götaland, became lost while hunting and spent the night in an isolated homestead of strange, arguably insane, backwoods bumpkins: a stingy farmer named Skafnörtung 'Skinflint', his equally stingy wife Tötra 'Tatters', and their three sons and three daughters. That night Gauti fathered Gautrek on Snotra who was the eldest of the farmer's daughters and supposedly the most intelligent of the bunch. The account bristles with grisly humor as it relates how one by one the members of this family of boobies committed suicide over the most trivial losses until at last only Snotra and her child survived. At that point Snotri took the child Gautrek to Gauti's court and King Gauti, years later on his deathbed, made Gautrek his heir.