Njal's Saga, written by an unknown author in the late thirteenth century, is the mightiest of the great Icelandic prose sagas. Based on historical events in Iceland some 300 years earlier, it describes a fifty-year blood feud from its violent beginnings to its tragic end. The spare, simple narrative centres loosely upon the prophetic Njal Thorgeirsson who, with his family, is finally burnt alive in his home by a league of enemies.