Lost his son and got badly injured in a feud with Hrappr’s family. The long time it took him to heal both physically and emotionally left him tired of feuding and fighting, and he now seeks only compensation at the local thing, and if need be, at the Althing, and is willing to let the dispute about the river be decided by others. Has thought about seeking the advice of Kolgrímr.
Used to love going fishing with his children, but can’t pull himself together to do it since the death of his son, even though he knows he will eventually have to do these things again, but just now he can’t.
Is starting to hate his wife for acting as if her son had just gone sailing and will come back someday, but has grown closer to his daughter who has been nursing him and helping him with his grief, being there for him during his darkest moments.
Likes:
- hearing (or telling) the stories of his father’s many heroic deeds, for example when his horses escaped and he rode an ox after them to drive them back. The stories have been repeated hundreds of times but they are still great stories, making him proud
- repetitive chores like haymaking
Dislikes:
- people who want to egg him on to pursue the feuding with the family of Hrappr. In his helplessness he just stops talking to them and walks away
Notes:
Oxen-Þórir (Yxna-Þórir) is mentioned in the Book of Settlement, but the story behind his nickname isn’t told, and so I had to make up my own version, obviously. I thought about making Oxen-Þórir one of my characters, using this picture here, and let the scar on his nose be a part of the ox-riding tale, but the man in the picture looked much too sad for a crazy rodeo story.
The presumably historical Oxen-Þórir is the great-great-grandfather of Eiríkr rauði, or Erik the Red.
Hólmkell doesn’t have a lot of likes and dislikes at the moment because he still feels hollow and numb from his PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).
Gold-Álöf is the widow of Hrappr and another one of my characters. She will be published some time in the future.
