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for not having avenged his father, his answer
     is that of a mild man: ‘Many have said that already, and I’m not
     angered by such words’ (Ch. 119).
    The person in the saga who illustrates this strain most steadily is Hall
     of Sida. His first action in the saga is to accept Christianity for himself and his
     household (Ch. 100). Repeatedly his voice is the voice of peace and conciliation: as
     spokesman for the Christian side, it is he who at great risk asks the pagan Thorgeir to
     decide which faith should prevail in Iceland (Ch. 105); after Flosi has been whetted to
     blood vengeance by Hildigunn, Hall tries to persuade him to make a peaceful settlement
     (Ch. 119); when the trial for the slaying of Hoskuld is thwarted, Hall persuades Flosi
     to accept arbitration (Ch. 122); when Flosi, after the burning, has paid an insulting
     visit to Asgrim, Hall tells him frankly that he went too far (Ch. 136); when Thorgeir
     and Kari have started on their course of revenge for the burning, it is Hall who
     performs the diplomatic task of persuading Flosi and Thorgeir to be reconciled (Chs.
     146–7). Most impressive of all are his determined action to end the battle of
     the Althing, in which his son Ljot has been killed, and his plea to both sides to make a
     settlement: ‘Hard things have happened here, both in loss of life and in
     lawsuits. I’ll show now that I’m a man of no importance. I want to
     ask Asgrim and the other men who are behind these suits to grant us an even-handedsettlement’ Shortly after, in order to facilitate the
     settlement, he adds:
    All men know what sorrow the death of my son Ljot has brought me. Many will
     expect that payment for his life will be higher than for the others who have died
     here. But for the sake of a settlement I’m willing to let my son lie
     without compensation and, what’s more, offer both pledges and peace to my
     adversaries. (Ch. 145)
    When we read that one of the leading godis in Iceland calls himself
     ‘a man of no importance’ and renounces any form of redress for his
     dead son, we are witnessing the complete antithesis of the old code of honour, in fact a
     new kind of honour.
    The two strains are neatly counterpointed in the feud between Hallgerd and
     Bergthora in Chs. 35–45. On the one hand the two women act systematically
     according to the code of feud, each killing giving the occasion for the next. On the
     other hand their husbands, who would normally carry out blood revenge, make generous
     offers of peace on each occasion.
    How do these two strains relate to the Christian element in the saga? This
     element is especially strong during and after the account of the Conversion in Chs.
     100–105, although as early as Ch. 81 Kolskegg (Gunnar’s brother) is
     baptized in Denmark and becomes a Christian knight. Religious terms like
     ‘baptism’, ‘preliminary baptism’,
     ‘Mass’, ‘the angel Michael’,
     ‘responsibility before God’ and ‘God is
     merciful’ begin to appear after Ch. 100, and at least three memorable
     utterances catch the ear with their religious overtones: Hoskuld’s dying words
     ‘May God help me and forgive you’ (Ch. 111); Njal’s
     plangent cry over that same killing, ‘when I heard that he had been slain I
     felt that the sweetest light of my eyes had been put out’ (Ch. 122); and
     Njal’s words of comfort at the burning, ‘Have faith that God is
     merciful, and that he will not let us burn both in this world and in the next’
     (Ch. 129). The battle of Clontarf in the final chapters is pointedly fought between
     pagan and Christian forces, and the Christian side wins.
    At times the two sets of values, Christian and pagan, intersect in a way
     that seems strange today. When Hildigunn goads Flosi by throwing Hoskuld’s
     blood-stained cloak over his shoulders, her wordscombine Christian