Hrafnkelsdalr

Hrafnkelsdalr is the valley Hrafnkell settled and named — the saga's heartland, and the ground of his pride, his fall, and his second rise. From his great seat at Aðalból high in this valley the proud chieftain rules the district, keeps his sacred horse Freyfaxi, and swears the terrible vow that drives the saga; here he kills his shepherd, is stripped and driven out when the law turns against him, and from here, eventually, recovers everything he lost. Hrafnkelsdalr is the saga's image of the chieftain's country — the valley that bears his name, the high eastern ground where one man's pride dominates a district, where the whole perfectly-shaped drama of overreach and reckoning plays out, the heartland a great man loses and claws his way back to.