Gripla - 2020, Page 285

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to avoid the shame and the potential for an escalation of violence that
financial compensation might entail while simultaneously preventing the
abilities of his younger namesake from being squandered, putting them
rather to productive use. Instead of inflicting punitive damage, either
through violence or imposing a financial burden designed to damage the
opposing side as much as possible, the arrangement can be regarded as a
more restorative approach to justice. Þorsteinn’s solution is centred not on
punishment but on repairing the harm, where possible, that has resulted
for both the surviving victims and the perpetrators of the killings of Einarr
and Þorgils.55 The elder Þorsteinn gains a surrogate son who is able to take
over the management of the farm at Hof as his own son once had done.
The younger Þorsteinn, though his father Þorfinnr is still living, gains a
surrogate father who, for example, helps to arrange a marriage with Helga
Krákadóttir, whom he had previously planned to marry prior to his friend
Einarr’s betrayal.
Conclusion
After eight years at Hof and at his surrogate father’s urging, the younger
Þorsteinn departs for Norway along with his wife, father, and father-in-
law, where he lives for the remainder of his life, and “þótti inn vaskasti
maðr” [was thought the most valiant man]. Þorsteinn hvíti, remaining
at Hof with his grandson Helgi, dies the following year whereupon it is
said he was thought to have been “it mesta mikilmenni” [the greatest of
men].56 The meeting that took place nearly a decade earlier between the
two Þorsteinns is a defining moment for both men. During that tense en-
55 On the differences between restorative and punitive justice, see, for example, John
Braithwaite, “A Future Where Punishment is Marginalized: Realistic or Utopian?” UCLA
Law Review 46 (1998–99): 1727–50.
56 Þorsteins saga hvíta, 18–19. The saga ends following a perhaps awkwardly placed anecdote
explaining how Helgi, whose story is told in much fuller detail in vápnfirðinga saga, ac-
quired his nickname Brodd [Spike], which has attracted the particular attention of scholars
seeking to establish connections between Þorsteins saga, vápnfirðinga saga, and perhaps also
trójumanna saga; see vápnfirðinga saga, 24n1; Jón Jóhannesson, “Formáli,” vi–ix; Halldór
Stefánsson, “Austfirðingasögur í útgáfu Fornritaútgáfunnar,” Múlaþing 2 (1967): 46–52;
Jón Helgason, “Paris i Troja, Þorsteinn på Borg och Brodd-Helgi på Hof,” nordiska studier
i filologi och lingvistik: festskrift tillägnad Gösta Holm på 60-årsdagen den 8 juli 1976, ed. by
Lars Svensson (Lund: Studentlitteratur, 1976), 192–94; and Gísli Sigurðsson, the Medieval
Icelandic saga and Oral tradition, 141–42.