Leikskálar

Leikskálar is Sám's stead — and the saga's image of how completely a victory can be reversed. Here Sám lives after his great triumph at the Thing, where he outlawed the mighty Hrafnkell and seized his seat; but his mercy-without-completeness in sparing the chieftain proves fatal. When Hrafnkell rebuilds his power and takes his patient revenge, Sám is reduced from a man who toppled a great chieftain to a powerless underling, ending his days at Leikskálar as Hrafnkell's subordinate. Leikskálar is the saga's image of the hollow victory's end — the stead where the man who won by law but could not hold what he won lives out his diminished days under the very chieftain he once cast down, the quiet measure of the saga's hard lesson about power and the limits of the law.