thematic thread
Law & Cunning
The atonement that breaks at the Thing: a settlement painstakingly built collapses over a procedural insult, and the failure of law sends men back to the fire. Law is powerful — and fragile.
The atonement that broke at the Thing
At the Alþingi the great men laboured to settle it, and very nearly did. Njáll begged both sides to stay and let good men make an award; the suit, he said, had sprung from an ill root, and only an arbitrated peace could draw it out. Hall of the Side talked Flosi into agreeing, arbitrators were named for each side, and they shook hands on it. A huge atonement was heaped up.[1]
Then Flosi looked at the pile, saw a garment laid on top, and asked who had added it — and got no answer. He asked again, sharper, and made a savage joke at Njáll's expense, sneering at the beardlessness the saga has needled all along. Skarphéðinn answered in kind, with an insult so vicious it could not be taken back.[2] In a heartbeat the settlement collapsed. The peace was off, and both sides walked away from the law for the last time.
The source text · 2
"It seems to me as though this suit were come to naught, and it is likely it should, for it hath sprung from an ill root. I will let you all know that I loved Hauskuld more than my own sons, and when I heard that he was slain, methought the sweetest light of my eyes was quenched, and I would rather have lost all my sons, and that he were alive. Now I ask thee, Hall of the Side, and thee Runolf of the Dale, and thee Hjallti Skeggi's son, and thee Einar of Thvera, and thee Hafr the wise, that I may be allowed to make an atonement for the slaying of Hauskuld on my sons' behalf; and I wish that those men who are best fitted to do so shall utter the award."— njals saga
Njáll's plea: the suit 'hath sprung from an ill root.'
"If thou must know," said Flosi, "then I will tell thee; I think that thy father the 'Beardless Carle' must have given it, for many know not who look at him whether he is more a man than a woman."— njals saga
Flosi's 'Beardless Carle' sneer; the insults shatter the settlement.
The great suit after the Burning is the saga's set-piece of legal combat: pleadings, technicalities, and the lawsuit collapsing into an actual battle at the Alþingi. Procedure and violence are the same contest in different dress.
The great suit
The dead of Bergþórshváll had a formidable kinsman left: Ásgrímr Elliða-Grímsson, who took up the prosecution and rode the country gathering chieftains to it, with Kári at his side. Against him the burners hired the sharpest lawyer in Iceland, Eyjólfr Bölverksson, bought with a gold bracelet. What followed at the Thing was a duel of pure procedure — summons and counter-summons, technical flaws sprung like traps — the law pushed to the very edge of what it could bear.[1]
It is Njála's genius that it treats a lawsuit with the same tension as a battle, because in this society they are the same contest by other means. But a case this poisoned could not hold inside the courts. When the legal machinery jammed — a deadlock of technicalities — there was nowhere left for the rage to go but out.
The source text · 1
Now the time passes away till the courts were to go out to try suits. Both sides then made them ready to go thither, and armed them. Each side put war-tokens on their helmets.— njals saga
The prosecution of the burners at the Thing.
The comic mirror: old Ófeigr out-cunnings a band of greedy chieftains at law, turning their own crooked suit against them. Law as a game of wits, won by the sharper mind.
The award turned
When the case came to judgement at the Thing, the trap the confederates had set sprang shut on themselves. The two great men Ófeigr had bribed — entrusted with making the award — turned it entirely in Oddr's favour, to the open fury and bafflement of the rest of the band, who could only watch their sure thing collapse.[1]
And Ófeigr had a final humiliation prepared. He arranged matters so that the confederates, having lost their prey, fell to quarrelling among themselves over the wreck of their scheme — exposed before all the Thing as the greedy cartel they were. The men who had swaggered in expecting to divide a fortune went home with nothing but ridicule. It is the rare saga where the powerful are not feared but laughed at, and where the weapon that defeats them is not a sword or even a lawsuit fairly fought, but sheer, gleeful cunning.
The source text · 1
Now it is to be told that on the morrow men go to the Hill of Laws, and a great crowd is there; and Egil and Gellir gather their own friends together: Ufeig was of the company of Styrmir and Thorarin.— bandamanna saga
The award at the Thing turned against the band (Morris & Magnússon 1891).
Sámr wins his suit and has Hrafnkell outlawed — and learns that a verdict is worthless without the power to enforce it. Law without force is the saga's hardest lesson.
Outlawed
With seventy Westfjords men at his back, Sámr stood at the Law Rock and pleaded the case cleanly, fearlessly, without a single misstep. When Hrafnkell tried to force his way through to break up the court — his old method, cow the small men, scatter the suit — the crowd was simply too thick. He could not get near. He could not even be heard to mount a defence. And so, at that very Thing, Hrafnkell Freysgoði was made a full outlaw, and rode home east in a black temper at an ending he had never once tasted before.[1]
But an outlawry was not finished until the sentence of confiscation was carried out at the man's own home, within a fortnight. Þorgeirr knew it. Hrafnkell is sitting at Aðalból as if nothing happened, he warned Sámr — guessing, rightly, that the man would simply resume his rule unless they came and broke it in person.[2]
The source text · 2
And now they sit quietly until the time when judgments were to be passed. Then Sámr called together his men and went to the Mount of Laws, where the court was set. Then Sámr came boldly forth to the court; calling witnesses forthwith, he pleaded his cause in a manner good in law against Hrafnkell the priest, without making mistakes and with a frank and fearless manner of pleading. Then came up the sons of Thjóstar with a large following of men, all men from the west country joining them, whereby it was seen how well befriended the sons of Thjóstar were. Sámr pleaded the cause unto judgment, until Hrafnkell was called upon to defend, or then he who should be there present who should come forward to keep up law defence for him, according as might be good and right in law. Sámr's pleading was received with good cheer, and the question was put whether no one would bring forward a lawful defence on behalf of Hrafnkell. People rushed to the booth of Hrafnkell and told him what was doing. He started quickly, calling together his men, and went to the court, thinking that there would be but a poor "defence of the coast," and thinking in his mind how he should make small men loth to set up cases against him ; and was minded to break up the court for Sámr and to hustle him out of the case. This, however, was not to be done now; there being already there such a crowd of people that he could get nowhere near; and so was himself hustled away with great violence, even so that he could not hear the speaking of those who pleaded against him, and therefore was deprived of means to bring forward a lawful defence on his own behalf. But Sámr pushed the suit to the full extent of law, until Hrafnkell, at this very "Þing," was made full outlaw. Hrafnkell went forthwith to his booth and had his horses brought up and rode away from the "Þing" mightily ill-contented at the end of these affairs, for such he had never before experienced. So he rode east, over Lyngdalsheiði and further on to Siða, and did not halt travelling until he came to Hrafnkelsdalr, and settled in his home at Aðalból. He behaved as if nothing had happened. But Sámr remained behind at the "Þing," going about and bearing himself right struttingly. Many people thought it well that the case should have come about in this way, and that Hrafnkell should have to come down once in a way, calling now to mind how many people he had dealt with unfairly before.— hrafnkels saga
Hrafnkell made full outlaw at the Þing.
Sámr waited until the "Þing" broke up, and men got ready to return home. He thanked the brothers well for their assistance, and Thorgeirr asked Sámr, laughingly, how he was pleased at the turn matters had taken? He signified his pleasure thereat; but Thorgeirr asked: "Deemest thou thyself now in any better case than before?" Sámr said: "Methinks that Hrafnkell has had a right great shame of this, such as shall be long remembered, and I deem it to be worth as much as a great lot of money." Thorgeirr said: "A full outlaw the man is not yet, as long as the act of distress has not been executed, which must be done at his own home, not later than a fortnight after 'Wapentake' " (but it is called Wapentake when all men ride away from the "Þing"). "But I guess," said Thorgeirr, "that Hrafnkell is come home, and means to sit at Aðalból, and I also hold likely that he will have taken to himself thy rule over men. But thou, I guess, art minded to ride home and to settle at thy house as best thou mayest, if such be possible. I guess, too, that thou deemest thou hast so brought about thy affairs as to declare him an outlaw, but I am minded to think that he will overawe people in the same manner as before, excepting that, as for thyself, thou wilt have to stoop even lower than ever." "That I never mind," said Sámr. "Thou art a brave man," said Thorgeirr, "and I think that my kinsman, Thorkell, is minded not to let it come to a poor end with thee, having made up his mind to accompany thee until a settlement of thy case with Hrafnkell be brought about, so that thou mayest sit at thy home in quiet. And thou, too, wilt think that it is most due to us now to give thee our support, since already we had the most to do in thy affairs. Now for this once we shall accompany thee to the Eastfirths; but art thou acquainted with any road thither which is not a highroad?" Sámr said he would go back the same way he had come from the east, and was now right glad at this offer.— hrafnkels saga
The confiscation must be executed at Aðalból.
Hen-Thorir twists a refusal of hay into a lawsuit and then a burning — law weaponised by spite, the courts used as a stage for malice.
Spite into a lawsuit
Hen-Thorir, who had been in the wrong by every measure, treated the taking of his hay — paid for — as a deadly affront. Rather than accept the fair price, he went seeking a great man to back a grievance against Blund-Ketil, and worked to turn his own meanness into a legal injury.[1]
It is the same dark engine as in Bandamanna: the machinery of law and feud bent by the unworthy to harm the worthy. But where Bandamanna plays that as comedy, Hen-Thorir plays it as tragedy. The miser found men willing to ride with him, summoned Blund-Ketil, and escalated a hay-debt that should have been nothing into a matter of armed men and killing. The saga watches a petty, avaricious spirit drag a whole district toward atrocity because it could not bear to be paid for what it would not give.
The source text · 1
Now shall we tell what Thorir fell to : he gat him gone from home with Helgi his Foster-son, and they ride to Northtongue, and are greeted there wondrous well, and Arngrim asks for tidings. Thorir answered: "I have heard of nought newer than the robbery." "Nay, now, what robbery?" said Arngrim.— haensa thoris saga
Hen-Thorir seeks backing to make a case against Blund-Ketil (Morris & Magnússon 1891).
Glúm's equivocal oath sworn at law — true to the letter, false in intent — shows cunning bending the legal form itself, gaming the very machinery meant to find truth.
The equivocal oath
Glúm's downfall turned, as so often in these sagas, on a killing and the law that followed. Accused of a slaying he had in fact committed, Glúm cleared himself by an oath sworn at the temple — but he framed the words with deliberate, lawyer's cunning, swearing in a form that was literally, technically true while concealing the real meaning: he said he was 'not there' in a way that let the hearers think he denied the deed, when the words actually admitted it.[1]
The equivocal oath is one of the most famous moments in the sagas — a man saving himself by the precise letter of words that betray their spirit. It works, for a time. But it is sworn at Frey's own temple, and to cheat with a sacred oath is to cheat the god. Glúm has won his case and, without yet knowing it, spent the divine favour that all his fortune rested on. The cleverness that always saved him has, this once, cost him everything.
The source text · 1
In the course of the winter Thorvard met Thorarin, and asked him, Did Glum take the oath properly? We found nothing to take hold of, said Thorarin. It is a wonderful thing, replied Thorvard, that wise people should make such mistakes. I have known men who have declared themselves to have slain others, but I have never known a case of a man swearing explicitly that he was guilty, as Glum did. How could he say more than he did when he declared that he was there at the doing of the deed, that he took part in the death, and that he reddened point and edge, when Thorvald the crooked fell at Hrisateig?--though I admit that he did not pronounce the words as they are commonly pronounced. That scandal will never be done away with. Thorarin replied, I did not observe this, but I am tired of having to do with Glum. Well, said Thorvard, if you are tired because your health is not equal to it, let Einar take the matter up. He is a prudent man, with a great kindred, and many will follow him. His brother Gudmund will not be neutral, and he himself is most anxious for one thing-to get to Thverà. Then they met Einar and consulted with him, and Thorarin said, If you will take the lead in the suit many men will back you in it, and we will bring it about that you shall have Glums land, at a price not exceeding that which he paid to Thorkel the tall. Einar observed, Glum has now parted with those two things, his cloak and his spear, which his mothers father, Vigfuss, gave him, and bad him keep, if he wished to hold his position, telling him that he would fall away in dignity from the time that he let them out of his hands. Now will I take up the suit and follow it out.— viga glums saga
Glúm's oath questioned — its equivocal, literally-true form revealed (Head 1866).
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