Gunnarr Hámundarson

Gunnar of Hlíðarendi is the nearest thing the sagas have to a knight — and the saga of Njáll uses him to show that even the best of men cannot outrun a bad marriage and a small island. He is peerless with weapons: he can leap his own height in full armour, cut with either hand, and his bow and his halberd are famous across the quarter. But he is a reluctant killer, generous and fair, and his tragedy is that the killings pile up anyway — driven by the malice of his beautiful, thieving wife Hallgerd and the schemers around her. Outlawed and ordered abroad, he rides for the ship — and then, at the last moment, looks back at his hillside, says 'fair is the slope, I will not go,' and turns home to his doom. Besieged in his hall, his bowstring cut (Hallgerd refuses him two locks of her hair to mend it, repaying an old slap), he dies fighting. The hero undone not by any enemy's strength but by love, pride, and the soil he could not leave.