Eyvindr Bjarnason

Eyvind Bjarnason is the well-travelled brother in Hrafnkels saga whose homecoming ends in blood — and whose killing seals the saga's hard final turn. Brother of Sám, the man who toppled the great chieftain Hrafnkell at law, Eyvind has been long abroad and returns wealthy and accomplished from service in Constantinople, a man who has seen the wide world. But he rides home across Hrafnkell's country at the very moment the patient, rebuilt chieftain is ready to take back everything he lost. Hrafnkell falls on the returning Eyvind and his men and kills them — the opening blow of his cold, complete revenge, by which he destroys Sám's standing and recovers his own. Eyvind is the saga's image of the worldly traveller cut down on his own home road: the brother who crossed the whole Norse world in safety only to be killed riding home, the first casualty of the proud chieftain's long-awaited return.