Another main interest of the Eyrbyggja Saga is to trace a few key families as they settled Iceland, specifically around the Snæfellsnes peninsula.

The different Norsemen represented in the Saga constantly turn to Snorri and Arnkel for advice and permission to take legal and/or physical action against perpetrators that have wronged them.

The story of the Eyrbyggja Saga frequently turns on actions that stem from greed, fear, ambition or downright meanness, as it describes cold-hearted bargaining between farmers and chieftains.

All of the events of the Saga take place in one small region of Snæfellsnes, shifting between Álptafjord, which cuts into the northern shore of the peninsula, and Helgafell, the farmstead on Thórsnes, where Snorri Goði resided.

37), the author tends to focus on Arnkel's ultimately more successful rival Snorri, who was not only an early champion of Christianity on Snæfellsnes but also an ancestor of the Sturlung family, who dominated Icelandic politics in the first half of the 13th century.

Snorri was middling in height and somewhat slender, fair to look on, straight faced and of light hue; of yellow hair and red beard; he was meek of mood in his daily ways; little men knew of his thought for good or ill; he was a wise man, and forseeing in many things, enduring in wrath and deep in hatred; of good rede was he for his friends, but his unfriends deemed his counsels but cold.In chapter 37, Snorri and his foster brothers kill Arnkel whilst he is working on his farm.

[14] Snorri in his later years successfully led a fight against Ospak Kjallaksson, a Norseman who had assembled a group of men that constantly attacked and pillaged his neighbors.

Arnkel provides similar information to the Norse living on Iceland on such matters as property rights and blood feuds.

[19] Arnkel had laid his sword and shield against a hayrick, and now he took up his weapons and defended himself therewith; but now he began to gather wounds, and withal they came up into the garth about him.

Then Arnkel leapt up on to the hayrick, and defended himself thence for a space, but such was the end of matter that he fell, and they covered him over there in the garth with hay; and thereafter Snorri and his folk fared home to Holyfell.The Saga reveals Erik the Red's discovery of Greenland.

The saga does not give a specific time of when this took place, but it does suggest that it was fourteen years before Snorri declared Christianity the official religion of Snæfellsnes.

[20] Eyrbyggja Saga describes numerous supernatural events that mainly consist of undead animals rising up through the floor and Draugrs coming into the house to warm themselves by the fire.

In the morning a search was made, and the shepherd was found dead not far from Þórólfr’s cairn; he was completely coalblack and every bone was broken.

In the middle of the night, Thorodd and the farmstead owners awaken to find a dead, naked Thorgunna setting the dinner table and preparing a meal to eat.

During the winter just before the Yule Feast, the constant sound of fisherman skinning fish could be heard outside the Frodis-water house.

Kiartan, a young man at Frodis-water, ran into the house with a sledge hammer and struck the seal back down into the floorboards.

The next three nights, Kiartan moves the guests and the fire in to a different room, however Thorir and the other ghosts continue to enter the house, flinging mud and killing servants and farm-hands.

[10] Eventually, Snorri, who was also Kiartan's uncle, banishes Thorir and the ghosts from Snæfellsnes using an effective combination of Christian rituals and Icelandic common-laws.