The Saga of Burnt Njal; The Spiraling Blood Feud

It's so hot! I'm writing this in the middle of a heat wave. it will be March before this posts but right now, it's a scorcher. We had 32 degrees yesterday and it's 30, so far, today. Because of this, I am hiding out in the local library. Air conditioning is a lovely invention.

Story
The Burnt Njal starts off with a small squabble between a pair of best friend's wives. This squabble leads to the first killing. This killing starts a slowly intensifying blood feud. This feud first consumes the living moments of Gunnar, who is one of the major players of the book (his wife is one of the original arguers), and eventually is his death. After every killing, the perpetrators and the family of the slain meet at the Thing, which is some kind of clan meeting, and is where the law court was held. At the Thing, both sides agree to a blood price for each person killed and pledge their peace to each other. Though this is meant to stop blood feuds, in this case the fight is taken up again and again, often by someone more tangential to the giving of peace. This feud, after the death of Gunnar, spreads to Njal's sons, and eventually to Njal himself. A large group of men come to his house and burn it with him and his household inside. One man escapes, Kari, the rest of the work then describes his revenge on those who did the burning. Eventual peace with the leader of the group  is achieved but only after all other perpetrators have been killed.

Reflections
The most interesting side track, to me, was the arrival and adoption of Christianity to the Icelandic shores and people. A group of men return from overseas in Norway that have converted. They, in turn, convert about half the island. It eventually comes to the hill of laws that they cannot have two laws for the land, so it is eventually decided that they should all become Christian. While this is an interesting addition to the life and times of the Icelandic people, it has little influence on the law proceedings themselves. Though it does change the priesthood and who had those honours.
It is notable just how broad the scope of the work is, starting right back with the original rivalry and fight between the two wives and not ending until the final man who did the burning was atoned for. I spent a lot of the work wondering where the burnt came from in the title as Njal was no more than a side character for much of the work and the burning itself is within the last 10% of the book.

Comparisons
Both The Burnt Njal and Beowulf are full of daring heroes doing daring things. The thing that sets them apart is that, in the Burnt Njal these heroes are fighting each other, not monsters. The Burnt Njal also gives more insight to the little day to day life things than Beowulf, or even than The Neibenlungenlied.
As a saga, the Burnt Njal, like the Iliad, is set mainly in one place; though we do occasionally see people traveling out of Iceland. The Iliad is also an epic that focuses on hero versus hero but it focuses on one action in a war, compared to the many individual actions in the Burnt Njal.

Have you read The Burnt Njal? If so what did you think of it?

Want to read The Burnt Njal but haven't? Hopefully this inspires you to take the time to do so.
Get a copy of  The Burnt Njal.