Among the insults traded by two rival poets in Bjarnar saga Hítdoelakappa is the raising of a ‘carved’ or ‘wooden’ níð (tréníð), a graphic version of the most serious kind of insult proscribed by the Old Icelandic and Norwegian law codes. It falls into a small group of examples of níð that, rather than having a single target, have the potential to implicate two men. Instances of níð involving two male figures are not as unusual as is sometimes implied; what is exceptional in Bjarnar saga is the fact that the perpetrator of the níð seems to involve himself in what apparently alludes to a shameful male-on-male sexual act. Owing to the gravity of the insult, the saga's description of it is euphemistic to the point of coyness, and its implication must be investigated in the context of other such references in saga texts. This chapter analyses the image as it appears in Bjarnar saga in the light of comparable examples of visual and verbal insult, and attempts to tease out its implications for the saga's representation of the relationship of Bjǫrn Hítdoelakappi and his older rival, the well-known poet Þórðr Kolbeinsson. The question it attempts to answer is whether, and how far, the shame of níð, involving as it does an explicit attack on masculinity, can be seen to extend to the perpetrator as well as the target of the insult, when the former appears to be involved in its imagery.

The image in Bjarnar saga is not described in detail, nor is its perpetrator explicitly identified; it is a ‘hlutr’ (thing), that ‘fannsk’ (appeared)‘í hafnarmarki’ (on the harbour boundary) of Þórðr Kolbeinsson. Although this apparition begins a new chapter of the saga, it is fixed in the context of a sequence of escalating exchanges of hostility by the comparative adjective used to refer to the ‘hlutr […] er þvígit vinveittligra þótti’ (which seemed by no means more friendly). This suggests a comparison with the immediately preceding act of aggression in the saga, a verse spoken by Þórðr for which he has been prosecuted by the target of the insult, Bjǫrn Arngeirsson, at the Alþing, the first time their mutual hostility had led to legal proceedings.