Gripla - 2020, Blaðsíða 281

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ternal focalization that broadly characterizes this and other saga narratives
toward the internal.42 This movement helps to render what would surely al-
ready be a tense meeting all the more poignant. The elder Þorsteinn begins
by asking his younger namesake, the brother of his son Þorgils’s killers,
“Hvárt þótti þér of lítil mín skapraun, ef þú sóttir mik eigi heim, blindan
karl ok gamlan?” [Do you think my trials too little without you seeking
me out at my home, a blind old man?]. Þorsteinn fagri did not arrive at
the farm, however, with hostile intents but is seeking to make amends for
the killing of Þorgils. He promptly offers Þorsteinn hvíta sjálfdæmi [self-
judgment] and claims that Þorgils will be compensated “svá at eigi hafi an-
narr maðr dýrri verit” [so that no man had been put at a higher price]. The
elder Þorsteinn refuses the offer, claiming that he “eigi vilja bera Þorgils,
son sinn, í sjóði” [does not want to carry Þorgils, his son, in a purse].
Þorsteinn fagri then dramatically leaps forward and places his head on his
elder namesake’s knee, forfeiting his life.43 Þorsteinn hvíti replies,
Eigi vil ek láta hǫfuð þitt af hálsi slá. Munu þar eyru sœmst, sem
uxu. En þá geri ek sætt okkar í millum, at þú skalt fara hingat til
Hofs til umsýslu með allt þitt, ok ver hér, meðan ek vil, en þú sel
skip þitt.
[I don’t want to have your head struck from your neck. Ears fit best
where they grew. But then I’ll make an agreement between us, that
you will come here to Hof to manage things with all you have and
will stay here as long as I wish, and you will sell your ship.]
Þorsteinn fagri agrees to these terms and the arrangement between the two
lasts for eight years. The saga relates that, during this time, the younger
42 On external focalization and saga style, see Daniel Sävborg, “Style,” the Routledge Research
Companion to the Medieval Icelandic sagas, ed. by Ármann Jakobsson and Sverrir Jakobsson
(London: Routledge, 2017), 112–15.
43 William Ian Miller Miller has referred to this act as a “forgiveness ceremony,” noting that
similar arrangements are made by Brodd-Helgi’s son Bjarni in both vápnfirðinga saga and
in Þorsteins þáttr stangarhǫggs, among other places; Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking, 57,
322n32, 369n22; see vápnfirðinga saga, 62–63; Þorsteins þáttr stangarhǫggs, in Austfirðinga
sǫgur, ed. by Jón Jóhannesson, íslenzk fornrit XI (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag,
1950), 77–78; see also Andersson, the Icelandic Family saga, 23–24; Sigríður Baldursdóttir,
“Hugmyndaheimur Vopnfirðinga sögu,” 74–76.