Hrafnkel or the Ambiguities

William Ian Miller presents a close reading of one of the best known of the Icelandic sagas showing its moral political and psychological sophistication. Hrafnkel tells of a fairly simple feud in which a man rises falls and rises again with a vengeance so to speak. The saga deals with complex issues with finely layered irony: who can one justifiably hit when and by what means? It does this with cool nuance also taking on matters of torture andpain-infliction as a means of generating fellow-feeling. How does one measure pain and humiliation so as to get even to get back to equal? People are forced to set prices on things we tell ourselves soporifically are priceless such as esteem dignity life itself. Morality no less than legal remedy involvesprice-setting. This book flies in the face of all the previous critical literature which with very few exceptions imposes simplistic readings on the saga. A translation of the saga is provided as an appendix.