Bergþóra Skarphéðinsdóttir

Bergþóra is Njáll's fierce, proud wife — and her choice at the end is one of the most moving in the sagas. Strong-willed and quick to defend her household's honour, she trades killing for killing with Hallgerd in the long simmering rivalry between the two great houses, neither woman yielding an inch. But it is in the fire that she becomes unforgettable. When the burners surround Bergþórshváll and offer the women and children safe-conduct out of the doomed house, Bergþóra refuses: she was given to Njáll young, she says, and she has promised that one fate should fall on them both. She lies down with her husband under an ox-hide and the fire takes them together. Bergþóra is the saga's portrait of marriage as an absolute bond — the proud wife who fought all her life for her house and chose, at the last, to die in it beside the man she would not be parted from.