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unloads his cousin’s timber, but Þorkell eventually makes Þorsteinn agree
to the departure. as the winds rise, Þorsteinn weeps for his cousin and
the sound of his killer (the weather).47 This unusually emotional scene is
the last that we see of Þorsteinn in Laxdœla saga, which ends shortly after-
wards with an account of Guðrún’s old age as an anchoress.
Þorsteinn’s appearance in Laxdœla saga is something of a loose thread:
we are not told what becomes of him or of the land at Hjarðarholt. Jesch
struggled to explain the existence of the scenes other than as a way of
expanding on Þorkell’s personality, and she concluded that the whole epi-
sode was the work of authorial imagination: “[t]he author of Laxdœla saga
used the family relationship between the two men as a base on which to
build a contrast of personalities to be used for his own ends in the struc-
ture of the saga. there is no particular reason to suppose that the source
of Þorsteinn’s appearances in Laxdœla saga was anything other than the
author’s imagination”.48
But why should Þorsteinn be the character to teach us about Þorkell’s
personality, when he does not feature in Laxdœla saga for any other reason?
not least, when the interactions between the two men reveal nothing new
about Þorkell’s character. the scenes do show a contrast between them,
where Þorsteinn is more hot-headed and emotional, whilst Þorkell is cau-
tious and pragmatic, but perhaps over-confident. However, we have previ-
ously witnessed Þorkell back down from conflict with his new bride when
they disagreed over the treatment of the outlaw Gunnarr Þiðrandabani,
and the future saint Óláfr Haraldsson referred directly to Þorkell’s pride
at their final meeting.49 Contrasting him with Þorsteinn in a scene that is
never followed up by the narrative would be unnecessary, were that the
scene’s only function.
However, the material of Þorkell’s interactions with Þorsteinn is more
likely to have been included for its reference to a prophecy. Laxdœla saga
is packed with prophetic statements, predictions, bad feelings and dreams.
It piles prediction upon omen when it comes to Kjartan Óláfsson’s fate;
Þorgils Hǫlluson is confronted by visions and verses of doom as he travels
to his final assembly; and Guðrún’s dreams form a thematic backbone to
47 Ibid., 222.
48 Jesch, “Lost Literature,” 266.
49 Laxdœla saga, 203; 217.
THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF ÞORSTEINN KUGGASON