Gizurr the White

Gizur the White is the chieftain who leads the host against Gunnar of Hlíðarendi — and a man of stature whose later role turns toward peace and the new faith. He heads the forty men who ride to Hlíðarendi to take the peerless hero, and is among those besieging the hall in Gunnar's famous last stand; afterward he refuses to let the dead hero be dishonoured. Gizur is also remembered as one of the leading men who helped bring Christianity to Iceland by the peaceful vote at the Althing in the year 1000. He is the saga's image of the weighty chieftain on the other side — not a villain but a great man doing the hard, lawful work of taking down an outlawed hero too dangerous to leave free, and capable, in another hour, of statesmanship and reverence. The leader of the band that brings Gunnar down, who would not see him shamed in death.