The saga's main character is Guðmundr inn ríki Eyjólfsson, a powerful chieftain from North-Iceland's Eyjafjörður district.
In the early-twentieth century it was an important part of the freeprose-bookprose debate of the oral vs. literary origins of the sagas of Icelanders, due to its problematic manuscript transmission.
[5] The story relates to the attempt Guðmundr and Thorgeir Ljosvetningagodi (Þorgeirr Ljósvetningagoði Þorkelsson) to comply with the demands of Haakon Jarl to shorten the lesser outlawry sentence of a quarrelsome youth.
The A-redaction moves on to tell of how Guðmundr avenges insults against his masculinity from the local chieftain Þórir Helgason and Thorgeir's son Þorkell, temporarily exiling the former and killing the latter.
[7] The C-redaction tells about how Guðmundr gets involved in northeastern Icelandic politics through the unwanted marriage of his daughter, and his dealings with local strongmen Ófeigr Járngerðarson and Þorkell Geitisson.