"Do these verses imply the death of Thorbiorn?"
And Thorarin, alluding to the legal process which Thorbiorn had
instituted against him, resumed his song--
"Sharp bit the sword beneath the hood
Of him whose zeal the cause pursued,
And ruddy flowed the stream of death,
Ere the grim brand resumed the sheath;
Now on the buckler of the slain
The raven sits, his draught to drain,
For gore-drenched is his visage bold,
That hither came his courts to hold."
As the consequence of this slaughter was likely to be a prosecution at
the instance of the pontiff Snorro, Thorarin had now recourse to his
allies and kindred, of whom the most powerful were Arnkill, his maternal
uncle, and Verimond, who readily premised their aid both in the field
and in the Comitia, or popular meeting, in spring, before which it was
to be presumed Snorro would indict Thorarin for the slaughter of his
kinsman. Arnkill could not, however, forbear asking his nephew how he
had so far lost his usual command of temper. He replied in verse--
"Till then, the master of my mood,
Men called me gentle, mild, and good;
But yon fierce dame's sharp tongue might wake
In wintry den the frozen snake."
While Thorarin spent the winter with his uncle Arnkill, he received
information from his mother Geirrida that Oddo, son of her old rival
Katla, was the person who had cut off the hand of his wife Ada, and
that he gloried in the fact. Thorarin and Arnkill determined on instant
vengeance, and, travelling rapidly, surprised the house of Katla. The
undismayed sorceress, on hearing them approach, commanded her son to sit
close beside her, and when the assailants entered they only beheld
Katla, spinning coarse yarn from what seemed a large distaff, with her
female domestics seated around her.
"My son," she said, "is absent on a journey;" and Thorarin and Arnkill,
having searched the house in vain, were obliged to depart with this
answer. They had not, however, gone far before the well-known skill of
Katla, in optical delusion occurred to them, and they resolved on a
second and stricter search. Upon their return they found Katla in the
outer apartment, who seemed to be shearing the hair of a tame kid, but
was in reality cutting the locks of her son Oddo. Entering the inner
room, they found the large distaff flung carelessly upon a bench. They
returned yet a third time, and a third delusion was prepared for them;
for Katla had given her son the appearance of a hog, which seemed to
grovel upon the heap of ashes. Arnkill now seized and split the distaff,
which he had at first suspected, upon which Kalta tauntingly observed,
that if their visits had been frequent that evening, they could not be
said to be altogether ineffectual, since they had destroyed a distaff.
They were accordingly returning completely baffled, when Geirrida met
them, and upbraided them with carelessness in searching for their enemy.
"Return yet again," she said, "and I will accompany you."
Katla's maidens, still upon the watch, announced to her the return of
the hostile party, their number augmented by one who wore a blue mantle.
"Alas!" cried Katla, "it is the sorceress Geirrida, against whom spells
will be of no avail."
Immediately rising from the raised and boarded seat which she occupied,
she concealed Oddo beneath it, and covered it with cushions as before,
on which she stretched herself complaining of indisposition. Upon the
entrance of the hostile party, Geirrida, without speaking a word, flung
aside her mantle, took out a piece of sealskin, in which she wrapped up
Katla's head, and commanded that she should be held by some of the
attendants, while the others broke open the boarded space, beneath which
Oddo lay concealed, seized upon him, bound him, and led him away captive
with his mother. Next morning Oddo was hanged, and Katla stoned to
death; but not until she had confessed that, through her sorcery, she
had occasioned the disaster of Gunlaugar, which first led the way to
these feuds.