Argumentative Essay: Hrafnkel's Guilty

If we only heard the plot that Hrafnkel killed his shepherd Einar because the shepherd rode his favorite horse, we may consider Hrafnkel a cruel man and make a guilty verdict towards him without a second thought. However, after taking a deep look at Hrafnkel's saga, we may find the statement that Hrafnkel was guilty is actually invalidated. Hrafnkel was innocent in this case not only because he was given the right of punishment when he made a strong oral contract with Einar, but also because he had to do this killing for important reasons.
During the era Hrafnkel lived in, oral word was more powerful than written word. Although the killing of Einar was a ruthless act, Hrafnkel did have the right to kill Einar according to the oral contract …show more content…
As a chieftain, he had to do the killing to defend his authority. In order to strengthen his position as the ruler of Adalbol, Hrafnkel need to stay with his own words. If he forgave Einar’s offence to his most important oath, the power of his words would be weakened and his status might be challenged. Therefore, although Hrafnkel appreciated Einar’s aptitude and did not want to have him killed, he had to take this action to show his power to others. Moreover, as a faithful follower of Frey, Hrafnkel had to kill Einar to defend the honor of his god. As we can see from the saga, Hrafnkel loved Frey so much that he built a temple for the god and was willing to give Frey half of his best treasures. He even named his favorite stallion Freyfaxi, which was also his most treasured possession. At that time, Freyfaxi was no longer an ordinary beautiful horse; it was regarded as the incarnation of Frey, a figure that could not be defiled. When Hrafnkel saw Freyfaxi came home dirty and worn out, his rage was not mainly from the break of the contract, but from Einar’s affront to the god he admired so much. Before Hrafnkel killed Einar, he mentioned that according to his faith, “nothing good can happen to people who break their solemn vows” (Anonymous, 43), and that is another important reason why he must do the killing. Ironically, bad things did happen to Einar because he …show more content…
When judging if Hrafnkel was guilty as charged of the crime of murder, neither what he did in the past nor what happened in the future should be used as evidences. On the one hand, according to the description in the saga, during the trial, all the farmers from the west showed their support to Sam and Thorbjorn. However, since Hrafnkel’s fame as a bully and other bad things he did brought a negative impression of him to others, people may not have a fair judgment of this case. Actually, compared to the duels Hrafnkel did in the past, the killing of Einar was under a different situation. Although he was mean to his enemies, Hrafnkel was always generous to his own people. If Einar had not conducted the major offence, Hrafnkel would still be nice to him. When Thorbjorn came to him after Einar died, Hrafnkel showed his deep regret: killing Einar made him feel bad, and he really did not want to kill Einar if he had other choices. In this case, Hrafnkel was not bullying people for no reasons, his killing was reasonable and he acted as a generous chieftain who was resigned to losing his staff and wanted to offer enough compensation to his family. On the other hand, during the jury deliberation, one juror questioned the strength of Hrafnkel’s faith because he did not have faith in gods in the later part of the saga. Nevertheless, Hrafnkel’s faith collapsed