Bloodfeud and Scandinavian Mythology

• Main Authors: John Lindow, Distinguishes Feud, From Bloodfeud
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Tive; Iceland
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.693.7429; http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/%7Ealvismal/4feud.pdf

involves kin groups and homicides. This distinction no longer seems tenable, given the recognition that homicide is only one possible strategy in the larger process of dispute resolution encompassed by feuding, but it is helpful in pointing up the recognition that feud societies themselves seem to make of the qualita-tive as well as quantitative distinction that homicide possesses over compensation and other forms of redress. The choice of the first word of my title is intended to stress the importance of homicide in the mythology and of blood as a symbol. The public history of Iceland lies all in the lives of private characters; it is the life of a municipality, very much spread out, it is true, but much more like the life of a country town or a group of country neighbours, than the society of a complex state of any kind that has ever existed in Europe. — Ker 1908, 251 edieval Iceland was hardly unique in possessing a stateless society, one in which individuals were responsible for resolving disputes without executive aid, with or without the law, and decisions