Arnkell goði

Arnkel goði is the noble chieftain of Eyrbyggja saga — and the great rival whose fall clears the way for Snorri goði's rise. The able, well-regarded son of the cruel old Thorolf Bægifót, Arnkel is everything a chieftain should be: strong, fair, popular, a protector of his men — so much so that he becomes the chief obstacle to the cold, calculating Snorri's ambitions in the district. Their rivalry is the saga's central contest, and it ends, as such things do, in Arnkel's killing, engineered against a man so well-liked that his enemies must move carefully. His death is felt as a real loss, and the saga marks how the law fails to avenge him properly because he left no son to press the suit. Arnkel is the saga's image of the good chieftain undone — the honourable rival whose very excellence made him the man Snorri had to remove, brought down not for any fault but for standing in a cleverer man's way.