Tim Severin - Odinn's Child

Next I witnessed something I have seen only four or five times in my life, even though I was to take part in quite a number of battles. Standing a little behind Kari, I saw a spear came hurtling at him, thrown by one of the Burners. Kari, who was not carrying a shield, sidestepped and caught the weapon left-handed in mid-air. At that instant I realised that Kari was ambidextrous. He caught the spear, as I say, left-handed, turned it and flung it back straight into the crowd of Burners and their supporters. He did not take aim, but threw as a reflex. The spear plunged into the crowd, killing a man.

By this stage men from both factions were trading blows with swords and axes and daggers, slamming shields in one another's faces, headbutting, wrestling hand to hand. This was not a military encounter between trained soldiers, disciplined and skilled in the use of arms. It was an ugly brawl between enraged farmers, and no less dangerous for being so.

The Burners and their friends began to fall back in disorder, and as the retreat began, Kari, the experienced fighter, picked his targets. He looked around for the men whom I had identified to him, those who bribed Eyjolf at the meeting at the gorge. One — Hallbjorn the Strong — was already in retreat with his injured foot, the other was Bjarni Brodd-Helgason. Seeing Bjarni in the scrimmage, Kari began to press towards him. There was no room for Kari to use his axe in the thick of the turmoil. Instead, again with his left hand, he snatched up a spear which someone had thrown and which was sticking up from the ground, and slithered the weapon through a gap between two men. His intended victim swung his shield round just in time to deflect the stab, which otherwise would have spitted him. With Kari extended fully forward, Bjarni saw his chance. As a space opened up, he darted his sword at Kari's leg. Once again Kari's remarkable agility saved him. He jerked back his leg, pivoted like a dancer, and in a moment was poised again and making a second spear thrust. As he lunged forward, Bjarni's life was saved by one of his retainers running forward with a shield. Kari's spear penetrated the shield and gashed the man in the thigh, a deep wound which was to make him a cripple for the rest of his life. Kari swayed back, preparing to strike a third time. He had dropped his axe and, holding the spear with both hands, thrust straight at Bjarni. The Burner threw himself sideways, rolling on the ground so the spear passed over him, then got back on his feet and ran for his life.

The fighting was now getting hazardous for the onlookers. The retreating Burners had to pass between the booths of several godars who had been friends with their victim, Njal. These godars and their retainers deliberately blocked the way, jostling and taunting the unfortunate Burners. Their taunts soon turned to blows and it seemed that the entire Althing was about to disintegrate into a general battle. A man named Solvi, who belonged to neither faction, was standing beside his booth as the Burners streamed by. Solvi was cooking a meal and had a great cauldron of water boiling over the cook fire. Unwisely he made a remark about the cowardice of the Burners, just as Hallbjorn the Strong was passing by. Hallbjorn heard the insult, picked up the man bodily and plunged him head first into the cauldron.

Kari and his allies chivvied the Burners through the booths and back towards the bank of the Oxar River. Both sides began to suffer losses. Flosi hurled a spear which killed one of Kari's men; someone else wrenched the same spear from the corpse and threw it back at Flosi, injuring him in the leg, though not badly. Once again it was Kari, the professional fighter, who did the most damage. Of the men who had almost humiliated him at the court, the key figure was Eyjolf the lawyer. Now Kari was out for revenge. As the Burners began to cross the river to safety, splashing their way through the milky-white shallows, Thorgeir Skora-Geir, who had been fighting alongside Kari all the time, saw the lawyer's scarlet cloak.

'There he is, reward him for that bracelet!' Thorgeir shouted, pointing to Eyjolf.

Kari seized a spear from a man standing beside him and threw it. The trajectory was flat and low, and the spear took Eyjolf in the waist and killed him.

With Eyjolf s death, the fighting began to subside. Both sides were exhausted, and Kari's faction were unwilling to cross the river and advance uphill against the Burners. One last spear was thrown — no one saw who flung it — and it struck down one more Burner. Then several of the leading godars arrived, among them Skapti the Lawspeaker, with a large band of their followers. They placed themselves between the two groups of combatants and called a halt to the fighting. Enough blood had been spilled, they said. It was time to make a temporary truce, and try to settle the dispute by negotiation.

To my astonishment, I now learned that conflict and killing in Iceland can be priced. Half a dozen godars assembled before the Law Rock and formed a rough-and-ready jury to calculate who had killed whom, how much the dead man was worth, and who should pay the compensation. It was like watching merchants haggle over the price of meat.

The weary fighters, who had been hacking at one another a moment before, were now content to lean on their shields or sit down on the turf to rest while they listened to the godars make their tally. The killing of this man was balanced by the killing of someone on the other side, the value of that wound was set at so many marks of silver, but that sum was then set against an injury on the opposite side, and so forth. In the end the godars decided that the losses that the Burners had sustained at the Althing brawl made up for the deaths they had inflicted on Kari's faction on previous occasions, and that both sides should make a truce and waive their claims for compensation. The original outstanding matter - the Burning of Njal and his family - was also settled. Compensation was to be paid for Njal's death, also for the death of his wife, and the Burners were to suffer outlawry. Flosi was banished for three years, while four of the more belligerent Burners — Gunnar Lambason, Grani Gunnarsson, Glum Hildisson and Kol Thorsteinsson — were banished for their lifetimes. However, in a spirit of compromise, the sentence of outlawry was not to take effect until the following spring, so that the chief malefactors could spend the winter arranging their affairs before beginning their period of banishment from Iceland.

The one man for whom no compensation was either sought or paid was Eyjolf. His underhand ways, it was commonly agreed, had brought the law into disrepute. One by one, the various farmers shook hands on the agreement, and thus ended what was, by all accounts, the most violent battle ever to take place before Logberg, the Law Rock.

ELEVEN

'OUTLAWRY FOR THREE years - that I can accept, but it's not for a youngster,' Kari explained later that evening. He had remembered me, even after all the violence of the day, and summoned me to the booth where he was staying. There he told me as much as he could remember about my mother Thorgunna in Orkney — including the details which I have given earlier — and now he was trying to make me understand why I had to fend for myself. When the godars announced their decisions at the Law Rock, Kari had been the only person to reject their judgement. He refused to acknowledge that the killings and maimings of the recent skirmish could be equated with the murders committed by the Burners on Njal and his family. 'In front of the most influential godars in the land, I declared that I refused to give up my pursuit of the Burners,' he went on, 'That means that sooner or later they will condemn me to outlawry and force me to leave Iceland. If it is lesser outlawry, then I must stay away for three years. If I come back before the time is complete, then my sentence is increased to full outlawry and I will be banished for life. Anyone declared an outlaw and still found in Iceland can be treated as a criminal. Every man's hand is against him unless he has friends willing to take the risk of protecting him. He can be killed on sight, and the executioner can take his property. It is no life for you.'