Viking Friendship: The Social Bond in Iceland and Norway, c. 900-1300

"To a faithful friend, straight are the roads and short."—Odin, from the Hávamál (c. 1000)

Friendship was the most important social bond in Iceland and Norway during the Viking Age and the early Middle Ages. Far more significantly than kinship ties, it defined relations between chieftains, and between chieftains and householders. In Viking Friendship, Jón Viðar Sigurðsson explores the various ways in which friendship tied Icelandic and Norwegian societies together, its role in power struggl...