Njáll Þorgeirsson

Njáll of Bergþórshváll is the wise man at the centre of his own saga — and the proof that wisdom and law cannot, in the end, hold back fate. Beardless (a thing his enemies mock), gifted with foresight, and the greatest lawyer in Iceland, he is Gunnar's closest friend and counsellor, forever finding the legal path that keeps the peace one more season. He all but invents the Fifth Court to mend the country's broken law. But his own sons are killers, the feuds gather, and Njáll — who can see the future — foresees his own end and does not run from it. When the burners surround his house, he refuses to fight his way out as Kári does; he lies down with his wife Bergþóra under an ox-hide and lets the fire take them, calm to the last. The wisest man in the sagas, who could read every doom but his own family's, and met it with a terrible, deliberate composure.