Laxdæla saga
The saga particularly focuses on a love triangle between Guðrún Ósvífrsdóttir, Kjartan Ólafsson and Bolli Þorleiksson.
These chapters were not written by the original author and are regarded by scholars as a separate work, Bolla þáttr Bollasonar.
Later in the saga when she hears that her father and her son are dead, she has a ship built so that she can take all of her surviving kinsmen as well as a great deal of wealth to safety.
Unnr goes on to travel to Scotland and the Orkney and Faroe Islands before claiming lands in Breiðafjörður in Western Iceland.
When Gunnhildr learns that Olaf wants to travel to Ireland to seek his grandfather, she orders a ship to be made ready for him and gives him a crew of sixty men.
As Höskuldr dies, he gives Olaf, his illegitimate son, the ring and sword which King Hákon had given him.
In order to make peace with his brother, Olaf offers to foster Þorleikr's son, Bolli, "as he who raises the child of another is always considered as the lesser of the two".
Guðrún's second marriage (to Þórðr Ingunarsson) is happy but short; her husband drowns through the witchcraft of a Hebridean family, Kotkell, his wife Gríma, and their sons Hallbjörn slíkisteinsauga and Stígandi.
The arch-pagan Earl Hákon has been killed and Olaf Tryggvason has ascended to the throne, eager to spread Christianity as widely as possible.
A number of prominent Icelanders are docked at Nidaros, forbidden to put to sea because they refuse to adopt the new religion.
[19] King Olaf makes repeated attempts at converting Iceland to Christianity but meets with resistance.
He decides to hold Kjartan and several other sons of prominent Icelanders as hostages in Norway to force a conversion.
He tells Guðrún that Kjartan is held in high favor by King Olaf and she shouldn't expect him back in Iceland in the coming years.
[20] News reaches Norway that Iceland has converted and King Olaf grants Kjartan leave.
When Kjartan, by coincidence, finds a beautiful woman named Hrefna trying on the headdress he tells her, "I don't think it would be a bad idea if I owned both together, the bonnet and the bonnie lass".
Kjartan is deeply rankled by the event but his father, Olaf, persuades him that the matter is too trivial to quarrel about.
When Kjartan calls Bolli out on the matter, Guðrún tells him: "And even if it were true someone here was involved in the disappearance of the head-dress, in my opinion they've done nothing but take what rightfully belonged to them.
Kjartan's brothers are outraged by their father's lenience and say that they will find it difficult to live in the same district as Bolli.
A man named Helgi Harðbeinsson deals Bolli a heavy blow with a spear and one of Kjartan's brothers then severs his head.
They start planning vengeance and some time later Bolli, wielding his father's sword, kills Helgi.
[32] Bolli Bollason travels abroad and makes a good impression on King Olaf Haraldsson in Norway.
The marriage was an unhappy one, and after three years Geirmund decided to return home without leaving any money for the support of his ex-wife and daughter.
He notes that Kjartan "comes to be depicted as a sanctimonious acolyte given to prayer, fasting and pious verbiage; instead of being a wilful spoiled child, vain and sulky, of a romantic temper and endowed with exceptional physical beauty, such as the run of the story proclaims him".
Similarly, he finds it jarring that Guðrún, "a beautiful vixen, passionate, headstrong, self-seeking and mendacious, is dutifully crowned with the distinction of having been the first nun and anchorite in Iceland, having meritoriously carried penance and abnegation to the outer limit of endurance".
[38] Ármann Jakobsson objects to interpretations that focus on Guðrún's good looks and glamour, and instead he draws attention to the emphasis that the saga places on her intellect.
He points out that in the account of her dream interpretation when she is fourteen years old she carries on a lengthy conversation with a sage.
[40] Similarly, Thorstein Veblen writes that the saga is conventionally regarded as "a thing of poetic beauty and of high literary merit".
These include, for example, Torfhildur Hólm's Kjartan og Guðrún (1886), E. Dagobert Schoenfeld's Kjartan und Gudrun (1898), Naomi Mitchison's The Land the Ravens Found (1955), Dorothy James Roberts's Fire in the Ice (1961), Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword Song (1997), Donna Jo Napoli's Hush: An Irish Princess' Tale (2007), and Rachel Tsoumbakos's The Irish Viking Princess (2020) and The Peacock's Mother (2021).
Among the poetic works are William Morris's "The Lovers of Gudrun" from The Earthly Paradise (1868–1870), Símon Dalaskáld's Ríma af Kjartani Ólafsynni (1869), and Brynjólfur Jónsson's Guðrún Ósvífsdóttir, Söguljóð (1892).
[43] Dramatic works inspired by the saga include Adam G. Oehlenschlager's Kiartan og Gudrun (1848), Júlíana Jónsdóttir's Víg Kjartans Ólafssonar (1879), Newman Howard's Kiartan the Icelander: A Tragedy (1902), John Masefield's The Locked Chest (1917), and Frank Laurence Lucas's The Lovers of Gudrun: A Tragedy in Five Acts (1935).
