Ísafjǫrðr (Icefirth)

Icefirth — Ísafjörðr, in the remote Westfjords — is the harsh, isolated district that is the ground of Hávarðar saga's tragedy. It is the domain of the overbearing chief Þorbjörn Þjóðreksson, who lords it over his weaker neighbours, murders the promising young Olaf Howardson, and denies the grieving father even the wergild the law allows. The district's remoteness is the point: far from the seats of power, with few allies to call on, a wronged man can find no justice against a strong man who breaks the law, and a bully can do as he pleases. Icefirth is the saga world's landscape of isolation and unchecked power — the place where the law's reach is thinnest, where the strong oppress the weak with impunity, and where, in the end, a lamed old man and a handful of unlikely allies must take by force the justice the district could not give them.