Hrafn Önundarson (Raven the Skald)

Hrafn Önundarson is the rival poet of Gunnlaugs saga — the smoother, gentler skald who wins Helga the Fair while Gunnlaug overstays abroad, and so becomes his deadly enemy. Where Gunnlaug is sharp, hot, and quarrelsome, Hrafn is courtly and well-liked, and the saga is careful not to make him a villain: he wins Helga fairly enough, by Gunnlaug's own failure to return in time, and he genuinely loves her. But two poets in love with one woman cannot share a small country, and pride drives them to a duel. In their final fight abroad, when Gunnlaug has wounded him and Hrafn asks for water, Gunnlaug fetches it in his helmet — and Hrafn, taking it, treacherously strikes at him, so that both are mortally wounded and both die. Hrafn is the saga's poignant near-mirror of his rival: not a bad man, just the other poet, undone by the same pride and the same impossible love.