Börkr the Stout

Bork the Stout is Thorgrím's brother in Gísla saga — the dogged, somewhat slow-witted pursuer who hunts Gísli for years and never quite catches the cleverer man. After Gísli secretly kills Thorgrím to avenge their murdered friend Vestein, Bork marries the widowed Thordís (Gísli's own sister) and takes up the long pursuit of the outlaw, doing it more by persistence than by wit. The saga gives him a faintly comic dimension: he is forever a step behind, outmaneuvered by Gísli's cunning and by his own wife's divided loyalties, even buying the help of a sorcerer to break the outlaw's luck. Bork is the saga's image of the relentless but outmatched hunter — the avenger who has right (by his lights) and resources on his side, but not the brains to match his quarry, plodding after a brilliant outlaw through year after year of near-misses.