Njal's Saga, 30-38

I was struck by the fact that Gunnar so quickly prepared to defend himself. Then I compared the safety situations of Today and Yesterday. Today we still feel unsafe, due to things like 9/11. But Yesterday, life was also very unsafe. Not only could you die frombattle wounds, but die due to infection, or mysterious diseases. Of curse when I say mysterious I mean back then they didn't know what caused them or how to defend themselves, unlike us today. For example today a simply cold won't kill us. Back then it could mean a death sentence.

The back cover describes Gunnar as having an aversion to bloodshed, but being very good at it. In this chapter we can see that he is definetely good at it. He is the first to jump on to Vandil's ship, with no helmet. He seem to exemplify a very popular type of hero: the reluctan hero. This hero does not neccessarily believe or want to do what he/she does, but they are very good at it, and keep doing it because they must, like Gunnar.

I was surprised when Gunnar took booty after the fight, as he hadn't initiated the conflict. then it goeson to say that they had other battles and won. That led me to believe that these incidents of piracy were common, and so the victory took the spoils, whether he started it or not.