Hrafnkel or the Ambiguities

Hard Cases, Hard Choices

William Ian Miller

An original interpretation of a major Icelandic saga
Written in a lively and engaging style
Interdisciplinary in approach, drawing on law, literature, history, social theory, and economics

Hrafnkel or the Ambiguities

Hard Cases, Hard Choices

William Ian Miller

Description

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 and pain-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 involves price-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.

Hrafnkel or the Ambiguities

Hard Cases, Hard Choices

William Ian Miller

Note to Readers
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Genealogies
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)
III. Horse, Vow, and Killing
5. Freysgodi, Frey, and Freyfaxi
6. The Ojafnadarmadr (the 'unevenman')
7. Sam, Einar, 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.)
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)
V. Six Years Later
18. Eyvind Returns; a Gridkona 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 Freysgodi, translation of MS AM 156, fol.
B. Glossary of Norse Terms
Works Cited
A.1 Hrafnkels saga, editions and translations consulted
A.2 Norse sources and translations
B. Secondary Works
Maps
Index

Hrafnkel or the Ambiguities

Hard Cases, Hard Choices

William Ian Miller

Author Information

William Ian Miller, Thomas G. Long Professor of Law, University of Michigan

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 Njals 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.

Hrafnkel or the Ambiguities

Hard Cases, Hard Choices

William Ian Miller

Reviews and Awards

"It is difficult to fault [Miller's] dedication to reading [the saga] with such a fine-toothed comb that he manages, against the odds, to say something new about a saga about which so much has been said before." -- Jackson Crawford, Scandinavian Studies