One of the biggest literary inspirations for Of Haste and Shame, Book Two of the Gracefire series is the medieval Icelandic Laxdæla Saga.

Before I tell you this story, I’d like to make one thing clear. I draw from it strictly as a literary and historical source. This saga is not the story I tell in Book Two. Rather, viewed through the lens of faith, I take the narrative in an entirely different direction.

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At the heart of the saga are three people: a woman named Guðrún and two foster-brothers Kjartan and Bolli. After Guðrún and Kjartan fall in love, Kjartan and Bolli leave for Norway. While there, Kjartan is delayed by King Olaf Tryggvason's Christianization efforts. Bolli returns to Iceland before Kjartan and tells Guðrún that Kjartan may not return for years and has grown close to the king’s sister. Guðrún, wounded and proud, marries Bolli instead.

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When Kjartan finally returns, he finds Guðrún married to his foster-brother, Bolli. Seething, he shortly marries another woman. The bitterness between the foster-brothers festers into humiliation, thefts, insults, and vengeance (a.k.a. feud violence). Guðrún repeatedly goads Bolli and her brothers against Kjartan. Eventually, Bolli kills Kjartan, though he immediately regrets it and cradles him as he dies. Later, Bolli himself is killed in revenge, and Guðrún spends years consumed by grief and vengeance before eventually becoming a Christian in old age. Her famous final line is that the man she loved most was "the one I treated worst."

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When I finished reading the Laxdæla Saga, I felt exhausted. I couldn’t stop thinking about how completely the story rejects the very possibility of forgiveness.

So why do I want to write about it?

The saga vividly portrays what happens when forgiveness is absent. Blood feud isn’t simply revenge. It's a worldview. It insists that every wrong must be repaid, every insult answered, and every wound avenged. It tells the story of the ultimate cancellation: murder.

Scripture tells a radically different story. We forgive not because people deserve it, but because Christ forgave us first. The gospel interrupts cycles that human intent and strength never can on their own. 

Grace rewrites the ending. This is the heartbeat of the second Gracefire novel. 

So, is it a retelling of Laxdæla Saga? Technically, you could call it one. But rather than retelling the saga, I’m asking different questions:

What happens when grace enters the story?
When forgiveness interrupts the cycle?

When redemption becomes possible?

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"Love is patient,
love is kind.
It does not envy,
it does not boast,
it is not proud. 
It does not dishonor others, 
it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil
but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects,
always trusts,
always hopes,
always perseveres."

—1 Corinthians 13:4-7