Guðrún Ósvífrsdóttir

Guðrún Ósvífrsdóttir is the proudest and most fully drawn woman in the sagas, the tragic centre of Laxdæla. Beautiful, clever, and fiercely willful, she is married four times and loved most by the man she never marries — Kjartan, the finest of his generation, whom she loses to his own foster-brother and friend Bolli through pride, timing, and a few unforgiven slights. Her jealousy, when it comes, is absolute: she goads her husband Bolli into helping kill Kjartan, and so destroys the man she loved, the man she married, and the friendship between them all in a single stroke. She outlives them, marries again, and ends her long life as Iceland's first nun and anchoress at Helgafell. Asked in old age which man she loved the most, she gives the most famous line in all the sagas: 'I was worst to the one I loved the best.' Grief, pride, and self-knowledge in one unforgettable woman.