If on the other hand your opponents retreat, I expect they will try to reach the natural stronghold of Almanna Gorge . I shall take it upon myself to bar their way to this vantage ground with my men, but we shall not pursue them if they retreat north or south along the river. Njal's Saga, supra note 3, at 296-97. A similar passage occurs id . at 162-63. I am here comparing the direct costs and benefits of different sorts of punishment.
Execution has the further indirect benefit of preventing repetition of the crime.
Some additional punishment might be required to compensate for the chance that a guilty person would be acquitted on a technicality, as sometimes happened. My only source for this is Williams, supra note 4, at 117-121. The system seems to have differed from the later English imprisonment for debt. which served as an incentive to pay debts but not as a means of doing so. This may be only an approximate statement. The sagas describe many miscarriages of justice, including outlawry based on relatively minor offenses.