GLUM'S WEDDING.
Those brothers gathered together a great company, and they were all
picked men. They rode west to the dales and came to Hauskuldstede, and
there they found a great gathering to meet them. Hauskuld and Hrut, and
their friends, filled one bench, and the bridegroom the other. Hallgerda
sat upon the cross-bench on the dais, and behaved well. Thiostolf went
about with his axe raised in air, and no one seemed to know that he was
there, and so the wedding went off well. But when the feast was over,
Hallgerda went away south with Glum and his brothers. So when they came
south to Varmalek, Thorarin asked Hallgerda if she would undertake the
housekeeping, "No, I will not," she said. Hallgerda kept her temper down
that winter, and they liked her well enough. But when the spring came,
the brothers talked about their property, and Thorarin said--"I will
give up to you the house at Varmalek, for that is readiest to your hand,
and I will go down south to Laugarness and live there, but Engey we will
have both of us in common".
Glum was willing enough to do that. So Thorarin went down to the south
of that district, and Glum and his wife stayed behind there, and lived
in the house at Varmalek.
Now Hallgerda got a household about her; she was prodigal in giving, and
grasping in getting. In the summer she gave birth to a girl. Glum asked
her what name it was to have.
"She shall be called after my father's mother, and her name shall be
Thorgerda," for she came down from Sigurd Fafnir's-bane on the father's
side, according to the family pedigree.
So the maiden was sprinkled with water, and had this name given her, and
there she grew up, and got like her mother in looks and feature. Glum
and Hallgerda agreed well together, and so it went on for a while. About
that time these tidings were heard from the north and Bearfirth, how
Swan had rowed out to fish in the spring, and a great storm came down on
him from the east, and how he was driven ashore at Fishless, and he and
his men were there lost. But the fishermen who were at Kalback thought
they saw Swan go into the fell at Kalbackshorn, and that he was greeted
well; but some spoke against that story, and said there was nothing in
it. But this all knew that he was never seen again either alive or dead.
So when Hallgerda heard that, she thought she had a great loss in her
mother's brother. Glum begged Thorarin to change lands with him, but he
said he would not; "but," said he, "if I outlive you, I mean to have
Varmalek to myself". When Glum told this to Hallgerda, she said,
"Thorarin has indeed a right to expect this from us".