Bjarni

Bjarni of Langarhús is the father of Sám and Eyvind in Hrafnkels saga — a modest dweller in Hrafnkelsdalr whose sons rise to play their fateful parts in the saga's drama of pride and law. He is the small farmer-patriarch from whose household come both Sám, who dares to prosecute the mighty Hrafnkell and briefly topples him, and Eyvind, who returns wealthy from Constantinople only to be killed by the recovering chieftain. Bjarni himself stays in the background — the ordinary valley-dweller whose sons step onto the saga's stage — but he is the root from which the challengers to Hrafnkell spring. Bjarni is the saga's image of the modest householder behind the action — the unremarkable father whose sons reach above their station to take on a great chieftain, the quiet domestic origin of the men who, for a time, bring the proud priest of Frey to his fall.