Gisli Stursson's Saga

I thought that one of the most interesting things about this saga was the complicated relationship between the brothers Gisli and Thorkel. It was confusing right from the beginning where Gisli killed the man Bard and how Thorkel was angry at Gisli about that until Gisli won the duel with Skeggi. It almost seemed like Thorkel was relieved that Gisli did not get killed in that duel, especially since Gisli had volunteered to fight in Kolbjorn's place and all. I wonder how the rest of the family must have felt about the repercussions of that duel--more people getting killed and their houses burned.

I thought the various mystical rites mentioned in the saga were interesting and how they had some unintended consequences, such as how the four men did not successfully complete their brotherhood-swearing ceremony and that was the point after which things started to get nasty. I think that part of the story shows how easily living situations could become awkward. You couldn't avoid ex-lovers or keep affairs covered up forever.

I thought it was interesting how pulling the weapon out of someone's death-wound made you responsible to avenge them.

My favorite line was on page 517 where Gisli is talking about his dreams that foreshadowed Vestein's death, that he did not want "to wake a third time from so dark a dream."

The ending of this saga was pretty sad. I noticed how several times it was repeated that Gisli was an accomplished man, but never had good luck or something to that effect. At least he made it for a long time (13 years?) as an outlaw. Even though the curse was supposed to be that no one could help him out, it seems like a lot of people did anyway. My other favorite part is on page 538: "However, it never occurred to him to say anything about the islands..." How often do movie bad guys get thwarted by some technicality? I guess this proves that such a plot twist is nothing new.