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William Ian Miller presents a close reading of one of the best known of the Icelandic sagas, showing its moral, political, and psychological sophistication. His account of this complex and nuanced saga corrects simplistic readings which have governed interpretation of the saga in the past.
List of contents
- Note to Readers
- Abbreviations
- Genealogies
- Key Farms
- Part I: Introduction
- 1: A Somewhat Querulous Introduction: Hrafnkel and the Critics
- 2: Of Names and Manageability
- Part II. Economic, Social, and Geological Context
- 3: The Saga's Economics (ch. 14)
- 4: New-found Land and Setting up Households (chs. 1-2)
- Part III. Horse, Vow, and Killing
- 5: Freysgoði, Frey, and Freyfaxi
- 6: The Ójafnaðarmaðr (the 'Unevenman')
- 7: Sam, Einar, and Hrafnkel (chs 3-6)
- 8: Freyfaxi and Hrafnkel: More on the Vow and its Price (chs 5-6)
- 9: Hrafnkel's Offer (ch. 7)
- 10: Thorbjorn's Rejection (ch. 7 cont.)
- Part IV. Lawsuit Ab Ovo to 'Final' Settlement
- 11: Mustering Support and Going Public (ch. 7 cont.)
- 12: The Lawsuit: Preparatory Stages (chs 8-9)
- 13: Thorkel's Homily on Fellow-feeling and Commensurating Pain (ch. 10)
- 14: The Trial (chs 11-12)
- 15: Hanging Upside-Down and Sam's Self-judgment (ch. 13)
- 16: Farewell Freyfaxi and Frey (chs 15-16)
- 17: The 'True' Nature of Hrafnkel's Transformation (ch. 16)
- Part V. Six Years Later
- 18: Eyvind Returns; a Griðkona Takes Over (ch. 17)
- 19: Who in Hell Are We Rooting For? (ch. 18)
- 20: Hrafnkel's Judgment and Justification (ch. 19)
- 21: Sam's Last Gasp (ch. 20)
- 22: Sam and Morpheus: What Counts as Taking a Turn
- 23: Conclusion: Hard Cases, Hard Choices
- Appendices
- A. Hrafnkels saga Freysgoði, translation of MS ÁM 156, fol.
- B. Glossary of Norse Terms
- Works Cited
- A.1 Hrafnkels saga, Editions and Translations Consulted
- A.2 Sources and Translations
- B. Secondary Works
- Maps
- Index
About the author
William Ian Miller is the Thomas G. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan and Honorary Professor of History at the University of St. Andrews. He has written extensively on the bloodfeud, mostly as manifested in saga Iceland: Bloodtaking and Peacemaking (1990), Eye for an Eye (2006), Audun and the Polar Bear (2008); 'Why is your Axe Bloody?': A Reading of Njáls saga (2014). He has also written books about various emotions, mostly unpleasant ones: Humiliation (1993), The Anatomy of Disgust (1997), The Mystery of Courage (2000), Faking It (2003), and Losing It (2011) about the loss of mental acuity that comes with age
Summary
William Ian Miller presents a close reading of one of the best known of the Icelandic sagas, showing its moral, political, and psychological sophistication. His account of this complex and nuanced saga corrects simplistic readings which have governed interpretation of the saga in the past.
Additional text
[A] tour-de-force combination of legal scholarship and passionate imaginative engagement with the work.
