At a climactic moment in Laxdala saga, one of the most popular of the sagas of Icelanders (Íslendingasögur), the hero Kjartan Óláfsson challenges his beloved foster-brother and cousin Bolli .orleiksson to decide whether or not to attempt to kill him in vengeance. The moment is the culmination of a feud that has developed between the kinsmen after Bolli steals Kjartan's lover Gu.rún Ósvífrsdóttir from him. Following a series of increasingly humiliating slights, the two men finally stand before each other:

The choreography of Bolli's act dramatically illustrates how the necessity for vengeance conflicts with homosocial bonds in the saga. Though Kjartan initially encourages Bolli to enter the fight (while addressing him as frændi, ‘kinsman’), he throws down his weapon as soon as he turns on him. Bolli, for his part, strikes Kjartan's deathblow before immediately sweeping him up, possibly in a single movement, so that his determination to kill his cousin and the love that he demonstrates by holding him as he dies appear almost concurrent. Bolli's oscillation makes visible the scene's central dilemma: whether it is a greater níðingsverk (deed of a shameful man) for a man to restore his manhood by killing his kinsman or to forbear vengeance for the sake of their kinship while enduring tarnished masculinity. In throwing down his weapons, Kjartan chooses forbearance at the risk of emasculation, while Bolli chooses the restitution of manliness at the cost of kin slaying.