Þorkell Súrsson

Thorkel Súrsson is Gísli's brother — one of the four sworn friends and in-laws whose fracturing fellowship is the tragedy of Gísla saga. When the men propose to bind themselves all together in sworn-brotherhood, it is the rift among them — Thorkel hangs back from the full pledge — that first cracks the fellowship that should have made them allies. As suspicion and killing tighten among the four, Thorkel drifts from his brother Gísli's side, and after the secret vengeance that outlaws Gísli, the estrangement deepens; Thorkel is himself eventually killed in the saga's web of reprisal. He is the saga's image of the brother who fails the bond — the man who would not quite swear the oath that might have held the four together, and whose holding-back is the first small fracture in the fellowship that breaks into the long tragedy of hunter and hunted.