Bróðir

Bróðir is the apostate whose sorcery foretells the doom he then commits. Once a Christian deacon, fallen away into heathen magic, he is a viking leader fighting against the Irish high king Brian at Clontarf — and by his arts he foresees the battle's doubled fate: that if they fight on Good Friday, Brian will fall but win the day. When the rout comes and few men stand by the praying king's shield-wall, it is Bróðir who breaks through and kills him, then cries out that men should tell each other Bróðir felled Brian. The boast brings his own grisly end down on him at once: Brian's men take him and put him to a hideous death. He is the dark instrument of the prophecy he himself spoke — the lapsed Christian whose magic reads the future and whose hand then makes it true, and who is destroyed the moment the deed is done.