Víglundr inn fagri (Viglund the Fair)

Viglund the Fair is the hero of the corpus's one true romance — a saga shaped less like a blood-feud than like a courtly love-tale. Strong, handsome, and accomplished, son of a Norwegian-born settler, he loves and is loved by Ketilrid, his match in every grace, the two of them fostered side by side and bound from childhood. But her family opposes the match and schemes to part them, marrying her off and driving Viglund abroad through trials and misunderstandings worthy of a medieval romance. Where most saga love ends in killing, Viglund's is the rare one that bends toward a happy ending: through constancy and many reverses the lovers are at last reunited and wed. He is the gentlest of the saga heroes, the proof that the Icelanders could write tenderness as well as vengeance — the fair youth whose story is about keeping faith rather than taking revenge.