holmgang

plural holmgangs · alternative holmganga

1. countableuncountableIn Norse and Icelandic culture, a duel to the death.

   Some members of the council suggested a holmgang.

   2015, Joseph Ottum, Sun Stone Saga: A Viking Passage to Helluland, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   A man could no longer be challenged for his lands or his women-folk, since the only result of holmgang which the law would allow, apart from wounds or death, was a claim for the payment of the agreed stakes.

   1933, Gwyn Jones, “Some characteristics of the Icelandic 'Hólmganga'”, in Journal of English and Germanic Philology, volume 32, number 2, page 224

   The influence of Christianity may have hastened the end of holmgang in Iceland, but long before the conversion of the country enlightened public opinion had come to see the absurdity of single combat as a method of settling disputes.

   1970, Eirikr Magnússon, The story of Kormak, the son of Ogmund, page 37