Njáls saga

Anonymous

4 ideas

1. The burning of Njáll at Bergþórshvoll

   Around 1011, Flosi and about a hundred men surround Njáll's farm at Bergþórshvoll to avenge Höskuldr Hvítanessgoði, Njáll's foster son, whom Njáll's sons killed after Mörðr Valgarðsson's slander. When the house is set on fire, Flosi offers Njáll safe passage. Njáll refuses because he is too old to avenge his sons and will not live in shame, so he lies down under an ox hide with his wife Bergþóra and their grandson and dies in the fire, while his son-in-law Kári escapes to carry on the vengeance.

2. Priced killings keep friendship but feed feud

   Gunnarr and Njáll keep their friendship because each paid compensation settles every killing between their wives' households, and they pass the same silver back and forth. Each payment ends the case, but it also sets the price of the next killing, and the wives and dependants who start the killings pay none of the cost. A settlement system that works perfectly between principals can therefore speed up violence among the people it does not bind.

3. Lawsuits as ritualized continuation of vengeance

   In the saga, law does not replace feud. It is feud carried on by procedure, where a lawsuit is won or lost on formal technicalities, and a legal defeat on a point of form turns straight into armed battle at the Althing. Legal order holds only as long as every party's honor can be satisfied in public.

4. One law, or no peace

   At the Althing in the year 1000, the lawspeaker Þorgeirr decides the conflict between pagans and Christians by requiring a single law for everyone. His reasoning is that if the law is split, the peace is split too. The saga's motto, 'with law shall the land be built, and with lawlessness laid waste,' names the mechanism: a shared legal framework, not shared belief, is what keeps a society without a state from breaking into factions.

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