Honor-shame societies place extreme importance on maintaining honor while a lot of personal effort is channeled towards ensuring that shame does not befall a person. In Icelandic societies, honor and shame were treated as extreme opposites. 1 Individuals could go to great length to protect their honor and avoid shame. Understanding the relevance of the two emotions of honor and shame in Icelandic society requires that one explores their true meaning in the context in which they were applied. Shame is an emotion derived from the audience where a person feels less important after whatever he or she took pride in is withdrawn while on is a privilege leading a person to hold a high moral status. 2 Hence, one characteristic of the honor-shame society was personal oaths. These are words or promises that people swore to abide by regardless of the situation. Consequently, these words bore great significance in maintaining one's honor. As seen in Hrafinkel's saga, it's more justifiable to shamefully break an oath provided that the outcome brings more honor to an individual.
One of the merits of shamefully breaking an oath is to maintain the reputation and avoid rebuke. In Hrafinkel's Saga, the first encounter with a character breaking an oath to avoid rebuke is in the case of Thorbjorn’s son, Einar. Einar is in desperate need of a job and takes one of herdsman of Hrafinkel's flock. The job is not what he could have wished for, but he has no other alternative. However, he is warned against riding Hrafinkel's favorite stallion, Freyfaxi. Hrafinkel had promised to kill anyone who rode his horse. Hence, Einar swears an oath not to do such a dishonorable thing as riding his master's favorite stallion while there were many other horses that he could use. 3 As expected Einar can abide by the oath before he encounters his real test. When thirty sheep in the flock stray and Einar decides to search using a horse, the other stallions except Freyfaxi become wild. Hence, Einar is tempted to break the oath he swore to his master by riding Freyfaxi. He does this to maintain his reputation as an excellent shepherd and also to avoid rebuke for losing thirty sheep. Again, he is motivated by the notion that Hrafinkel would never find out. Contrary to his expectations, his misdoings are known and anger his master. As a result, he is killed by Hrafinkel.
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Furthermore, guilt and remorse can be justifiable reasons for breaking an oath. Van Halderen and Kolthoff in their study of behavior that leads to rule breakage explain that feelings of remorse for previous actions are a motivation for such behavior. 4 After killing Einar, Hrafinkel felt guilty and remorseful for his actions as evidenced by his words to Thorbjorn that this was one of his worst killings. 5 Initially, Hrafinkel has sworn an oath not to compensate kinsmen of the victims that he had killed. However, he expressed willingness to break this promise because of the remorse he felt for his action. Considering that he was a Chieftain, he promised compensation in form of provisions to Thorbjorn’s family and a host of other privileges to him and his family. The lengths that Hrafinkel was willing to go to care for the victim's family highlight the level of emotional remorse he felt. Thus, his willingness to break his promise never to compensate his victims. Despite the generosity Hrafinkel's offer, Thorbjorn turned it down with the intention to use legal means to gain his revenge.
Loyalty could also pass a valid reason for breaking a personal promise to oneself. This could apply in situations where the characters are kin or closely bonded by something else like friendship. In the case of Hrafinkel's Saga, Thorbjorn pleads for the support of his niece, Sam in getting revenge for the killing of his son. Sam is a famous lawyer who has built his reputation over the years by sheer hard work. It's therefore unexpected that Sam would be willing to take up the case considering that Hrafinkel was a powerful and resourceful man. By taking up the case, Sam would be risking the gains he had made in his career in addition to an almost certain humiliation that would befall both of them. However, other factors like loyalty to his kinsman, and the possibility of a big victory over Hrafinkel are likely to change his views. Eventually, Sam was willing to break up his personal promise of helping fools and risking humiliation to help his uncle. Sam's decision underlines the superiority of family ties in Icelandic culture.
Moreover, merits for breaking an oath can emanate from a person’s feelings of compassion. Medieval Iceland oath-breaking punishments were affected by the culprit's relationships with societal members who would be severely affected by the punishment. 6 In Hrafinkel case, these would be his family members. After Sam had won the case against Hrafinkel, the law allowed him to take any kind of revenge he wished against him. Initially, Sam had promised to take the most severe revenge against Hrafinkel if the jury allowed him. Thus, he was tied by his promise to kill Hrafinkel once he was declared an outlaw. However, Sam was tricked by Hrafinkel’s pleas and the suffering that his family would go through if he were to die. Thus, he went against expectations and decided to banish Hrafinkel and his family to far away land. Another incidence of compassion leading oath-breaking is where Hrafinkel decides to care for Einar’s sons as a form of compensation in spite of him not compensating his victim’s families.
Revenge is one of the most widely practiced cause of shameful oath-breaking. The urge to exert revenge over one's adversaries often overpowers the will to keep one's word. Most Icelandic Sagas portray existing conflict between choices for the rule of law of vengeance. 7 This is seen in Hrafinkel's resolution to keep his part of the bargain for the initial six years of his exile, but when a chance for revenge presents itself, he can hardly let it pass. Hrafinkel had changed into a much gentler and liked man. 8 However, his old character came glaring its ugly elf when he heard that Eyvind, Sam's brother was traveling with few men close to his Hrafinkel's home. Having risen to chieftaincy, he can quickly marshal men to attack Eyvind. This is despite there being a spoken agreement between him and Sam after the events leading to his exile that he will never come back to claim his property. After killing Eyvind, Hrafinkel plans and executes a revenge attack at Adalbol. Through his actions, Hrafinkel breaks his part of the agreement and regains control over Adalbol.
In essence, Hrafinkel’s Saga portrays situations that merit the shameful oath-breaking with their consequences. At times people are bound by words that they had spoken under a different situation, however when the circumstances change there is need to go against those words. Such situation change is an event in Einar’s case to protect his reputation, Hrafinkel’s guilt after killing Einar and his quest to regain his position. Other reasons that merit oath-breaking in Icelandic culture are loyalty and compassion. Thus, going against one’s words with a merited reason may sometimes bring honor.
Bibliography
Coles, John. n.d. " Hrafinkel's Saga." The Icelandic Saga Database. http://sagadb.org/hrafnkels_saga_freysgoda.en. (Accessed February 11, 2018).
Kanaan, Alissa. 2016. " An Interdisciplinary Study of The Emotion of Shame in The Islendingasögur." Universitatis Islandiae Sigillum. http://hdl.handle.net/1946/23623. (Accessed February 11, 2018).
Laing, Gregory L. 2014. " Bound by Words: Oath-taking and Oath-breaking in Medieval Iceland and Anglo-Saxon England." Western Michigan University
ScholarWorks at WMU. http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1384&context=dissertations. (Accessed February 11, 2018).
Lawler, Bridget. 2016. " Vengeance and Mercy in Medieval Iceland." http://www.thomasmorecollege.edu/blog/2016/10/05/vengeance-and-mercy-in-medieval-iceland/. (Accessed February 11, 2018).
Van Halderen, R. C., and E. W. Kolthoff. 2016. "Noble Cause Corruption and Task-Related Rule-Breaking Behavior." Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance 1-9.
