Category Archives: Stories

The Psychology of Superheroes

Posted on by
6

superheroes

Robin Rosenberg grew up with superhero comics. Later she shared them with her children, and after becoming a clinical psychologist, she studied them through the lens of psychology and discovered that “superhero stories are about morality and loyalty, about self-doubt and conviction of beliefs. I also saw that, like any good fiction, the sagas of superheroes bring us out of ourselves and connect us with something larger than ourselves, something more universal.”

Rosenberg published “We Need a Hero” in the current Smithsonian Magazine http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/The-Psychology-Behind-Superhero-Origin-Stories-187938991.html#ixzz2IrHHrBBI.  The article inspired me to read The Psychology of Superheroes a collection of essays that Rosenberg edited in 2008 on what makes these caped crusaders tick.

Sometimes it seems that superheroes can’t get no satisfaction, but is that accurate?  Not according to the opening essay in the collection, “The Positive Psychology of Superheroes,” by Christopher Peterson and Nansook Park.  “One of the defining features of a superhero is an over-riding mission to serve the larger world and to defend it.  In this sense, superheroes have profoundly meaningful lives.”   

Peterson and Park assert that meaning is more important than pleasure in leading a satisfying life. That’s a good thing, because with a few exceptions, superheroes are challenged on the relationship front.  I’ve always thought it’s the flaws embodied in the secret identities of Clark Kent and Peter Parker that bonds us to these characters.  In one sense, they’re just like us, and their stories suggest that we too may choose the highroad.

Though superpowers isolate them from others, sometimes superheroes band together with superior results, according to the second essay in the collection, “The Benefits of a Group,” by Dr. Wind Goodfriend. This article may shed some light on why The Justice League of America functions more efficiently than your team at work or committees at church.

Another topic discussed in the book is the question of nurture vs. nature in the development of superhero psychology.  Superman may have his powers through genetics, how did he come to use them for altruistic rather than narrow and selfish ends?  Did he inherit those qualities too, or were they a result of his wholesome upbringing on a farm in America’s heartland?  What would have happened if his pod had landed in New York City?

Good and evil are usually clearly drawn in superhero stories, but not always. In “Anti-Heroism in the Continuum of Good and Evil,” Dr. Michael Spivey and Steve Knowlton discuss the ambiguous, gray-zone nature of super anti-heroes and sympathetic villains (think of Darth Vader and Gollum).  Each of the 18 essays in The Psychology of Superheroes addresses some facet of the super-psyche that you may or may not have wondered about.

Humans have relished hero tales for millennia.  Superman joined the ranks 75 years ago, and if you’ve been to the cineplex lately, you know that his saga is going to continue this summer.  The trailer for Man of Steel 2013 zeroes in on Clark’s inner struggles to understand who he is and why he is here.  Earlier incarnations of Superman did not live in a world of such moral ambiguity and mistrust of the government, themes which place this telling squarely in the 21st century.

As The Psychology of Superheroes makes clear, what we really admire is not the superpowers but the hero, the one who overcomes their doubts and demons and then acts to make the world a better place. This book is a fascinating read in its own right and will whet your appetite for the new movie.  It will give you some new perspectives on movies you’ve seen in the past as well as the comic books that once inspired some of us to run around wearing capes made out of bedsheets.

Thank you!

Posted on by
7

Thanks to everyone who stopped by this week to read and comment on “Tales of the Dummling” after it was freshly pressed.  I’ve been getting over a cold – fortunately not the nasty flu that’s going around, but bad enough that I was too tired to thank everyone who liked the post or signed up to follow thefirstgates.  Thank you now if I missed you then!

I’m grateful to the good folks at WordPress who singled out this particular post.  I was freshly pressed before, in 2011, which was exciting and encouraging, but this time the post truly mattered to me.  I won’t say I was, “Following my bliss,” because that phrase has been so over-used.  How about, “Following my feather?”  I didn’t think this kind of work would have that wide an appeal, but I’m happy to see that it does.

Your comments this week gave me many things to mull over.  Just like the very best stories, you raised questions I cannot easily answer.  Questions about the various goals that folktale characters pursue.  Questions about which attributes lead to success.  How and even whether to try to interpret fairytales – this is a topic I plan to address very soon.

Meanwhile, here is part of a post I started in December on what the stories tell us we need to do on a quest.  (Aren’t we are always on some kind of a quest?).

I called it, “What fairytales have to say about living in difficult times,” and though I don’t plan to finish it in its present form, I offer this portion of it as kind of an online journal entry, that’s bound to resurface later in some other form:

***

Dec. 12, 2012
In my previous post, I outlined a US intelligence report, Global Trends 2030, that listed factors likely to speed up the rate of change in our already fast moving world.  I ended with a question:  can fairytales tell us anything about living in difficult times?

I believe the answer is yes.  As James Hillman put it, “If we had more fairy tales when we were young, we’d need less therapy as adults.”  Fairytales always deal with crisis times.  Your father will die if you don’t find the water of life.  Your stepmother wants to kill you.  The king will cut off your head if you fail to capture  the firebird.

Lives are on the line in fairytales, and sometimes the characters don’t survive.  When they do, we find they share  certain characteristics which can be stated as guidelines for people on a quest, in the otherworld or in this one.

1. Never travel alone – successful quests demand allies.  Sometimes the hero or heroine assembles a group of companions with strange skills that prove to be essential.  At other times, a single helper is enough.  In longer tales the guide may change; a shaggy horse will become a spirit brother.  One of my psych professors claimed that the best chance of success in folklore belongs to those who win the help of an animal guide.  For Jung, such totem animals symbolize the “Self,” the center of our being, as well as our instincts, which get submerged in modern life.  On this point, all the world’s stories agree – our ordinary habits, ideas, and ways of doing things are never up to the most important tasks in life.

Undine by Arthur Rackham, 1909. Public domain

Undine by Arthur Rackham, 1909. Public domain

Help often comes from people and places that “wise” people avoid.  The hideous hag or the strange man by the side of the road may hold the key to happiness and survival itself.  They reveal their secrets only to those who see and hear with the heart and their deepest wisdom.

2.  Be kind, but keep your wits about you:  In one story, a girl is kind to an ugly old hag and is rewarded.  Her step sisters mouth off, and forever after, toads fall from their mouths when they try to speak.  Kindness, respect, and compassion matter, yet some creatures are evil and we have to know the difference.  In the original version, Snow White falls for the witches tricks repeatedly (despite the dwarves warnings) before she finally takes a bite of the poison apple.  “Fool me twice, shame on me,” as the saying goes.  If strange little men give you shelter when you’re lost in the woods, you might want to heed their advice!

From an 1852 Icelandic translation of Snow White. Public Domain

3.  Be Flexible:  

4.   Trust Yourself and your instincts:

I cannot now remember what I was going to say about 3 and 4 – I’ll let you know when I figure it out, so please stay tuned!

Something is happening here…

Posted on by
6

Readers of a certain age will recognize the title of this post as part of the chorus of one of Bob Dylan’s iconic songs of the ’60’s, “Ballad of a Thin Man.”

And something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones ?

What brought the song to mind was another simple phrase which seemed to sum up our own time in a similar pithy way.  Strangely enough, it came from a piece on CNN.com called “Why the best thing you can do is fail,” by Eddie Obeng, founder of a virtual business school  http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/30/opinion/obeng-business-disruption-ted/index.html.  Here is the passage that caught my attention:

“What’s happened in business is that the rules of the real 21st century aren’t clear to us, so instead we spend our time responding rationally to a world which we understand and recognize, but which no longer exists.”

We can substitute many other words for “business” and find the phrase rings equally true.  Try it.  “What’s happened in [publishing, school safety, government, warfare, economics, international relations] is that the rules of the real 21st century aren’t clear to us, so instead we spend our time responding to a world which we understand and recognize, but which no longer exists.”

Both the Dylan lyrics and Obeng’s observation put into simple words what we’ve known for some time but could not express so clearly.

One of my favorite words, liminal, stands for times like these, times of uncertainty and change in the life of an individual or a culture.  Webster’s Dictionary defines liminal as: “1 of or at the limen or threshold 2 at a boundary or transitional point between two conditions, stages in a process, ways of life, etc.”

I started a post in December concerning what fairytales have to say about living in liminal times.  Fairytales always happen in times of transition or crisis times.  Your father will die if you don’t find the water of life.  Your stepmother wants to kill you, or you find your new husband is a serial killer.  The king will cut off your head if you fail to capture  the firebird.

Can this be relevant to the 21st century?  I’m convinced that it can.

Right now I’m reveling in one of my Christmas presents, The Annotated Brothers Grimm, a fine new collection published to celebrate the bicentennial of Grimm’s fairytales.

Reading so many stories at the same time raises a number of questions.  What does it take for a character to survive their otherworld challenges?  Sometimes you have to obey a witch, and at other times you need to push her into the oven.  Sometimes not knowing is an asset and sometimes a fatal flaw.  You should listen to animals by the side of the road unless they are wolves and you’re wearing red.

I don’t expect to come up with definite answers, but I do expect to turn up some interesting questions.  This is my immediate plan; after that, I’ll do as I’ve always done on this blog, make things up as I go along.

I very much hope you’ll stay tuned.  And now, I’ll leave you with my wish for a joyous and prosperous 2013, and with a very old clip of Bob Dylan doing “Ballad of a Thin Man” in 1966 in Copenhagen…

Reflections on Story Water

Posted on by
4

My second post on this blog, on July 1, 2010, featured a poem called “Story Water” by the 13th century Persian mystic, Rumi.  It came to mind in the light of recent events.

Friday morning, as I worked on post #420, I got up for coffee and flipped on the radio.  The post concerned what folklore can teach us about living in difficult times.  After I heard of the murdered children, I put it aside.  Some events seem too much for stories.  Yet reflection later reminded me that stories are always with us, one way or another.  Rumi knew this.  He knew how the stories we hear feed our inner tales and the importance of choosing wisely where to place our attention.

On friday night, hundreds of people in Newtown, Connecticut went to church.  As I heard how they turned to a story of hope in a dark time, I thought of one of the first such stories I told myself.

One day in first grade, a classmate went home sick.  The following monday, the teacher told us she died.  I had seen dead birds in the woods behind our house, but that was the first time I realized death could visit at any time.  It could steal our friends and loved ones away in a heartbeat.

The dead girl’s name was Cindy Erwin, and she was the minister’s daughter.  I figured her father’s vocation gave her an in with Jesus, and she would be fine.  I never worried about Cindy, although I’ve never forgotten her name.  I knew it was the rest of us who were in trouble.

Stories like this, the ones we tell ourselves, shape our lives in ways we can barely imagine.  Everyone young or old who lived through events at Sandy Hook School or watched them unfold on TV will remember the day as long as they live and tell themselves stories about what happened and why and what it means.

According to Rumi, few of us know the answers with certainty.  That’s why we have stories.  That’s why they matter so much.  I think he would have agreed that in the end, the world is made of stories, so it matters very much which ones we tell each other and ourselves.  In ways we don’t understand, they shape the world as it unfolds.

STORY WATER by Rumi

A story is like water
that you heat for your bath.

It takes messages between the fire
and your skin. It lets them meet,
and it cleans you!

Very few can sit down
in the middle of the fire itself
like a salamander or Abraham.
We need intermediaries.

A feeling of fullness comes,
but usually it takes some bread
to bring it.

Beauty surrounds us,
but usually we need to be walking
in a garden to know it.

The body itself is a screen
to shield and partially reveal
the light that’s blazing
inside your presence.

Water, stories, the body,
all the things we do, are mediums
that hide and show what’s hidden.

Study them,
and enjoy this being washed
with a secret we sometimes know,

and then not.

The One Thing

Posted on by
2

In my previous post, I talked about “Rosebud,” the sled that represented the unrequited desires of Charles Foster Kane in Orson Welles’ classic film, Citizen Kane.  I’ve been thinking a lot about metaphors for the deep yearnings that push and pull us through life, for good or ill, depending on whether they’re wise or foolish and if we know what they are.

Another of my favorite movie metaphors comes from the 1991 comedy, City Slickers. Three middle aged men, looking to reignite the passion in their lives, sign up for an old west style vacation that includes a cattle drive.  Things go wrong of course, and the dude ranch experience becomes a fight for survival, with nasty villains, a stampede, and raging rivers.

One night, after chasing stray cows into a canyon, timid Mitch (Billy Crystal) opens up to Curly (Jack Palance), the hardened trail boss.  Curly turns out to be wise as well as tough, and tells Mitch he needs to discover and follow “the one thing” that matters most in his life.

The one thing

Another phrase I love for our one thing, is “throughline,” a screenwriting term that was coined by Constantin Stanislavski, the great proponent of character acting.  A throughline propels the protagonist through a story.  It’s the core motivation that carries the hero from scene to scene and through all the gains and setbacks.

“Throughline” is great as a metaphor because it’s expected to change, just as our “one things” do in life.  Frodo initial goal is to carry the ring to Rivendell and place it in more capable hands, but just as in our lives, inner and outer events alter his goal.

Because of the election season, I recall the same dynamic in the life of Jimmie Carter.  In 1980, his goal was a second term as president.  After a resounding defeat, his life’s “through line” changed and deepened.  He threw himself into humanitarian work and extensive diplomatic travel and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.  I read two books of his theological reflections and realized that Carter’s “one thing” is a dedication to Christian values that transcends what you usually hear from politicians still trying to get elected.

“Thread” is another common image for the one thing we use to chart our course in life.  In the Greek myth, Ariadne gives Theseus a ball of thread to find his way out of the labyrinth after slaying the monster within.

Ariadne and Theseus by Niccolo Bambini, Italian. Date unknown. Public domain.

I’ve already quoted my favorite thread image on this blog, but will do it again.  It’s William Stafford’s poem, “The Way it Is,” 1993:

The Way It Is

There’s a thread you follow.  It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

There may be people who know from the start what matters in their lives, but for the rest of us, there’s a lot of trial and error.  Awareness of “time’s unfolding” is what gives such reflections their force.  What is the one thing or few things I truly care about?  Is there any question more important than this?  Next time I will write about a man whose entire life is an exemplary answer.

Reflecting on 400 posts

Posted on by
11

It’s taken me a while to write about reaching this milestone, partly because I’ve been busy, and partly because it’s hard to wrap my mind around a number this big.  The only wise thought that comes to mind is, “Wow, that’s a lot of posts.”

Writing has always been a mode of discovery for me, a way of digging below the surface noise of the mind and excavating what I am really thinking/feeling/imagining at any particular point in time.  I like the image of archeology – writing as inner spade work.

Fiction most often reveals where imagination wants to go, while blogging typically tells me what I really think about the topic at hand.  I don’t much care for this western way of categorizing awareness.  I prefer the Tibetan conception where  “mind” resides at the heart chakra and includes thought, feeling, perception, imagination, and intuition – all the shifting contents of consciousness.  That seems closer to our lived experience.  When I say, “This is me,” I point to my heart not my head.

But I digress.

I am grateful to every one of my readers – I wouldn’t be doing this without you!  The realization that others find something useful in what I write is as thrilling now as it was when I first wrote stories in grade school.  I was especially gratified with your interest and encouragement for my exploration of Njal’s Saga.  I invested a lot of time and effort, and I’ll remember your response the next time such a major project tugs at my attention.

I don’t have any clear roadmap for the next 100 posts – it wouldn’t be exploration if I knew where I was going.  I hope you’ll ride along and continue to post your wonderful reactions!

Stories, Dreams, Politics, and Baseball

Posted on by
4

Yesterday, I struck up a conversation with another San Francisco Giants fan about the possible conflict between the National League Championship Series and Monday’s Presidential Debate.  The Giants are down three games to two.  If they pull off a win tonight, the final game will be Monday.

Later, considering which program I want to watch vs. the one I should watch, I thought of how clear it’s become to me that this election is not about the candidates themselves, but about the visions, or perhaps more accurately, the stories about America they embody.  Most people seem less than thrilled by the candidates themselves, but everyone takes the stories seriously.

A high school history teacher planted the seeds of this understanding decades ago.  At the time of another presidential election, he suggested that most voters are swayed by an image of times past, a story of “the good old days,” which probably never existed.  He argued that the imagination of the conservatives of his day echoed the television show, Bonanza.

The Cartwrights (l-r), Adam, Little Joe, Ben, and Hoss. Public domain.

Ben Cartwright and his three sons carved a fine spread out of the wilderness – they did it on their own, by the sweat of their own brows, thank you very much.  The only hint of government was the Virginia City sheriff, and generally the Cartwrights told him what to do and not vice versa.

In a similar manner, liberals dream of Kennedy’s “Camelot” and its precursor, The New Deal.  For the generation that came of age during The Great Society and the War on Poverty, “less government” is a codeword for Charles Dickens’ London: “Are there no prisions?  Are there no workhouses?”

Scrooge meets Ignorance and Want. Public domain.

And whenever you hear a politician of any persuasion invoke “family values,” you can bet their story embodies the world of Norman Rockwell.  Anyone grow up in a family like this?

Norman Rockwell mural. Public domain, courtesy Oregon Historical County Records Guide.

We’re dealing with powerful stuff here – nothing drives us more than our dreams, which means we need to be careful.  I liked Bonanza and still enjoy Norman Rockwell, but I try not to bring them into the voting booth.  Kids learn how to separate dreams from the world of make-believe:  they know that “I want to be a doctor” is different from “I want to fly like Super-man.”  What kids know, politicians seem to forget.

Tomorrow night, the presidential candidates are scheduled to discuss “foreign policy.”  Webster’s Dictionary defines policy as, “1.  wise, expedient, or prudent conduct or management.  2. a principle, plan, or course of action, as pursued by a government, organization, or individual, etc.”

I expect to hear a story that goes like this:  “We are number one and if you want to keep it that way, vote for me.”  I’m not so sure we’ll hear much about policy, aka, “wise, expedient, or prudent conduct or management.”  For that we often have to look to outsiders.

I’ve done precisely that over the last few months, and was startled to find a clear and feasible foreign policy articulated with very similar features from both a liberal and a conservative point of view.  There’s a beautiful story in there too, one involving national renewal through shared effort and dedication.  A dream, to be sure, but it doesn’t require Superman.  This will be the topic of a post in the coming week.

Meanwhile, though I’ll be watching the debate, I’ll have my phone set to the instant scoreboard app.  “The Giants are number one,” is a dream that could happen, but if Superman is listening, we’re not above asking for help!

*** Update, Sunday Night ***

The Giants won, 6-1, so there will be a game 7!

Njal’s Saga, part 3

Posted on by
3

Gunnar looks back at his home, 1898 illustration. Public domain.

In order to follow this discussion, it will help if you’ve read two earlier posts:

  1. Njal’s Saga, an Introduction: http://wp.me/pYql4-2sS
  2. Njal’s Saga, part 2: http://wp.me/pYql4-2tb

Scholars suggest that the author wove together two separate stories, an oral “Gunnar’s Saga,” and a related but distinct, “Njal’s Saga.”  Both men die during attacks on their homes.  Historically 18 years passed between the events; Gunnar died in 992 and Njal around 1010.  In the last third of the saga, Njal’s son-in-law, Kari, mounts a campaign of revenge against the killers which threatens the stability of the nation.  A pitched battle breaks out at the Althing, the National Assembly, which was sacred ground where fighting was forbidden.  When reconciliation finally comes, it signifies the dawn of new vision of life and its purpose.

Once the saga gets going, certain scenes come alive like movies – I know there’s a screenplay here…

***

Soon after Gunnar and Hallgerd were married, they attended a feast with Njal and his wife, Bergthora.  In no time, the two women were at each other’s throat.  The insults grew so extreme that Gunnar dragged Hallgerd out of the hall. Soon after that, she had one of Bergthora’s slaves killed.  Bergthora paid her back in kind, initiating a feud that escalated and took the life of free retainers and then kinsmen on both sides.

The killings took place while the husbands were at the Althing which  convened for two weeks every summer.  Aside from social activities, this was the time for legal action on matters the lower courts couldn’t settle.  It was also where “compensation” for killings was determined.

If you killed a man, even in self defense, you confessed it in front of witnesses.  A hidden killing was treated as murder and could result in exile for life.  A killing confessed was manslaughter and terms of compensation could be set:  a slave was worth seven ounces of silver, a freeman fifteen, and a kinsman as much as 200.  It may seem cold, but the system was designed to break the cycles of revenge that the old ethic of “honor” and blood retribution entailed.

Gunnar and Njal tried to keep up with the legalities of the killings-for-hire their wives initiated, but it became harder as stakes were raised.  Each killing drew more people, bound by family and friendship, into the feud.  Into this deadly mix came Mord Valgardsson, son of Unn,  who despised Gunnar and Njal.

If Hallgerd spawned chaos and harm, she did so in a half-unconscious manner.  She was reactive, without clear designs or premeditation.  Mord, by contrast, was cunning, able to weave elaborate snares for his enemies.  Our tour leader, Robert Willhelm, pointed out the similarity of Mord’s name to Mordred, King Arthur’s  son and nemesis.

During a famine, Hallgerd sent a servant to steal food from a man who refused to sell any to her husband.  When Gunnar, with his concept of honor, discovered the theft, he slaped his wife, who had already buried two husbands who hit her.  Hallgerd warned Gunnar that she would never forget the blow.

Njal prophesied that if Gunnar killed two members of the same family and broke the legal settlement for the killings, he would die soon after.  Through trickery, Mord ensured that Gunnar killed the son of a man he’d already slain.  In addition to a financial settlement for the killing, the Althing court sentenced Gunnar to three years in exile.

In one of the most poignant scenes, as Gunnar and his brother rode to the harbor, Gunnar’s horse slipped while fording a river.  Springing off the horse, Gunnar looked back at his farm and said, “Lovely is the hillside – never has it seemed so lovely to me as now, with its pale fields and mown meadows, and I will ride back home and not leave.”

That autumn, Mord sent word that Gunnar was home alone and 40 of his enemies mounted an attack.  Firing arrows from the second floor, Gunnar killed two assailants and wounded eight.  Then a man named Thorbrand got close enough to cut Gunnar’s bowstring.

Gunnar defending his home, 1898. Public domain.

Gunnar turned to his wife and asked for two strands of her waist length hair for a new bowstring. Hallgerd said, “Does anything depend on it?”

“My life depends on it,” Gunnar said, “for they’ll never be able to get me as long as I can use my bow.”

“Then I’ll recall,” she said, “the slap you gave me, and I don’t care whether you hold out for a long or short time.”

Gunnar wounded eight more attackers before he finally fell, exhausted and wounded in fifteen places.  One of the attackers said, “His defense will be remembered as long as this land is lived in.”

Gunnar’s mother was ready to kill Hallgerd who fled the house.  Gunnar’s friends raised a burial mound, and one night, as two of Njal’s sons passed by, they saw the mound open.  Four lights shone and cast no shadows.  The brothers heard Gunnar’s spirt sounding content as it spoke skaldic verse.

***

Gunnar embodied the old warrior ideal of life and death with honor that won you a place in Valhalla.  The dark side of this ethos was an unending string of killings that threatened the nation itself.  Things were about to change.  Shortly after Gunnar’s death, a Christian missionary named Thangbrand arrived in Iceland.  He wasn’t the sort of evangelist you want on your doorstep, since he carried a crucifix in one hand and a sword in the other and didn’t much care which he used.

One autumn morning, as Thangbrand celebrated mass, a man named Hall of Sida approached.  “In whose memory are you celebrating this day?” he asked.

“The angel Michael’s,” Thangbrand said.

“What features does this angel have?”  Hall asked.

“Many,” said Thanbrand.  “He weighs everything that you do, both good and evil, and he is so merciful that he gives more weight to what is well done.”

Hall said, “I would like to have him for my friend.”

With his openness to new ideas and the simple way he voices his spiritual longing, Hall becomes the first convert.  In 999 or 1000, the Althing declared Christianity to be the new religion.  Mord continued to work behind the scenes fomenting trouble for Njal and his sons, and around the year 1010, 100 armed men attacked Njal’s home and burned it, with him and most of his family inside.  Only Kari of Orkney, Njal’s son in law, escaped.  He raised a force to attack the burners, and at the next Althing, when the retribution process broke down, a pitched battle erupted at Thingvellir, the spiritual heart of the nation.

Battle at Thingvellir. Public domain.

During a lull in the fighting, members of the assembly intervened to arrange a truce.  Hall of Sida stood between the combatants and said, “All men know what sorrow the death of my son Ljot has brought me.  Many will expect 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 like without compensation, and what’s more, offer both pledges and peace to my adversaries.”

Things have changed.  A few decades earlier, such a statement would have cost Hall his honor, but the saga says that when he sat down, “much good was spoken about his words, and everybody praised his goodwill.”

The combatants submitted to judgement.  Cash payments were levied as well as three years exile from Iceland for the combatants.  During the exile, they slew each other in Orkney and along the coast of Ireland, but finally, when the leaders returned to Iceland, they pledged friendship to each other.  The old ways had cost too much in blood and suffering.  The survivors had no stomach for anymore fighting.  The saga ends with a sense that a new wind was blowing through the land.

Next:  reflections on the story.