Holmgang (Old Norse: holmganga, Icelandic: hólmganga, Danish and Norwegian: holmgang, Swedish: holmgång) is a duel practiced by early medieval Scandinavians. It was a legally recognized way to settle disputes.

The name holmgang (literally "holm-going") may derive from the combatants' dueling on a small island, or holm, as they do in the saga of Egill Skallagrímsson, alternatively figuratively in reference to an arena.

At least in theory, anyone offended could challenge the other party to holmgang regardless of their differences in social status. This could be a matter of honor, ownership or property, demand of restitution or debt, legal disagreement or intention to help a wife or relative or avenge a friend.

Holmgangs were fought 3–7 days after the challenge. If the person challenged did not turn up for the holmgang, the other man was considered just in his challenge. If the offended party did not turn up for the holmgang, they were deemed niðingr, and could have been sentenced to outlawry. In effect, if someone was unwilling or unable to defend their claim, they had no honor. Sometimes a capable warrior volunteered to fight in the place of a clearly outclassed friend.

Holmgangs do not seem to have been limited to one-on-one duels, but instead could feature many combatants on each side, as long as the numbers were equal.^[1]

The 13th-century Västgötalagen (Westrogothic law), is a fragment from an unknown late Viking Age law document from Västergötland, Sweden, which stipulates the conditions for a type of judicial duel, either referring to holmgang or einvigi (trial by combat):

In 1957, Poul Anderson, a Danish-American who frequently used Viking themes in his writings, published the science fiction story "Holmgang" (collected in the 1982 anthology Cold Victory). The story's two protagonists, feuding spacemen of the future who are of distant Scandinavian origin and one of whom (the villain) is historically conscious, decide to revive this Viking tradition, resorting to a deadly holmgang on a lonely asteroid instead of a sea island, in order to settle their irreconcilable differences over a tangled issue involving crime, politics, and a woman's love. Anderson's protagonist in "The Man Who Came Early", set in 10th-century Iceland, is also forced into a holmgang.

Holmgang is the name of a Norwegian TV-debate program that aired on the commercial Norwegian station TV 2 from 1992 to 2008.

In the 2001 novel Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey, the fictional Skaldic people observe the holmgang and other Norse and Teutonic traditions. One Skaldic character challenges Joscelin Verreuil to holmgang.

The film The 13th Warrior (1999) includes a holmgang process, complete with insult, shields and weregild. The book the film is based on, Eaters of the Dead, contains the same scene with more detailed explanation of both the ritual and the significance of how it is carried out.

In the 2013 MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, the character class Marauder and its upgraded form Warrior has the ability Holmgang, which creates a chain that binds the user and their target together. They are immobile for the duration and must attack each other, in reference to how a real Holmgang would be conducted.

The Norwegian television series Norsemen featured a holmgang in the Season 1, Episode 1 of the series (between Arvid and Olvar), and again in the second season.

The 2020 video game Assassin's Creed Valhalla features several holmgangs throughout its story campaign.

In 2021, Pär Hulkoff (solo Swedish metal singer-songwriter) released a single, "Holmgång", for his upcoming album Ragnarök. The song, melodic and aggressive, ties the ancient Northern practice into modern military context.

In the 2022 film The Northman, Amleth and Fjölnir engage in a holmgang at the top of the volcano Hekla.

• Trial by combat
• Duel

• Bø, Olav. "Hólmganga and Einvigi: Scandinavian Forms of the Duel". Medieval Scandinavia 2 (1969) 132-148.
• Byock, Jesse. "Hólmganga", entry in Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia (ed. Philip Pulsiano, 1993) 289-290.
• Ciklamini, Marlene. "The Old Icelandic Duel". Scandinavian Studies 35:3 (1963) 175-194.
• Falk, Oren (2004). "Bystanders and Hearsayers First: Reassessing the Role of the Audience in Dueling". In Meyerson, Mark D.; Thiery, Daniel; et al. (eds.). A Great Effusion of Blood": Interpreting Medieval Violence. University of Toronto Press. pp. 98–130. ISBN 0-8020-8774-4.
• Hermann Pálsson and Stefanie Würth, '"Holmgöngur" in der altnordischen Literatur: Historischer Gehalt und literarische Gestaltung', Amsterdamer Beiträge zur Älteren Germanistik, 41 (1995), 37ff.
• Jones, Gwyn. "The Religious Elements of the Icelandic 'Holmganga'". Mod. Language Rev. 27:3 (1932) 307-313.
• Jones, Gwyn. "Some Characteristics of the Icelandic 'Holmganga'". J. Eng. & Germanic Philology 32 (1933) 203-224.
• Radford, R. S. "Going to the Island: A Legal and Economic Analysis of the Medieval Icelandic Duel". Southern California Law Rev. 62 (1989) 615-44.

• Viking Answer Lady Webpage - Hólmgang and Einvigi: Scandinavian Forms of the Duel