Abstract
Outlaw stories are rare in the contemporary sagas not because they became unpopular as literary structures, but because the legal function of outlawry had been weakened by social developments in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Iceland. As the political climate in Iceland changed and created a destabilising power-struggle, in which a victory for one side could turn into a defeat for them within weeks, there was little space for heroic outlaws, as the emboldened chieftains were able to disregard outlawry and to protect their followers of lower social standing from pursuit if they so wished.
Although the outlaw pattern is not frequent in the contemporary sagas, there are two stories, that of Aron Hjörleifsson and that of Þórðr Sighvatsson, in which this narrative structure is fully developed and forms the texts' meaning. Significantly, however, the pattern does not end with the protagonist's death like in the typical outlaw sagas; instead, it is combined with the travel pattern that ends with the protagonist's reintegration into society with the help of the Norwegian king.
The structural parallel between the narratives of Aron Hjörleifsson and Þórðr Sighvatsson highlights that the two men were similar in spite of the initial hostility between their families, and it underlines the fact that such enemies were able to find common ground and reach agreement eventually despite their conflicts. These ideas counterbalance the depictions of widespread social violence of the Sturlung Age, thereby creating a less one-sided image of the period than has been offered by traditional interpretations of the contemporary sagas.
Whilst these texts suggest that a certain degree of instability was inevitable during the transformation of Iceland's social order leading to its integration into the Norwegian kingdom, they focus on the renewal of balance through reconciliation, showing that the Sturlung Age was not perceived as a period of social downfall and disintegration, but rather as a period of transformation that brought new methods of resolving conflicts. These methods were rooted in centralized power, which had become necessary to the thirteenth-century Icelandic society.