<i>The Slaying of Thorgils Makson</i>.
Asmund the Greyhaired lived on at Biarg, while Grettir was abroad, and
by that time he was thought to be the greatest of bonders in Midfirth.
Thorkel Krafla died during those seasons that Grettir was out of
Iceland. Thorvald Asgeirson farmed then at the Ridge in Waterdale,
and waxed a great chief. He was the father of Dalla whom Isleif had to
wife, he who afterwards was bishop at Skalholt.
Asmund had in Thorvald the greatest help in suits and in many other
matters. At Asmund's grew up a man, hight Thorgils, called Thorgils
Makson, near akin to Asmund. Thorgils was a man of great strength and
gained much money by Asmund's foresight.
Asmund bought for Thorgils the land at Brookmeet, and there he farmed.
Thorgils was a great store-gatherer, and went a-searching to the
Strands every year, and there he gat for himself whales and other
gettings; and a stout-hearted man he was.
In those days was at its height the waxing of the foster-brothers,
Thorgeir Havarson and Thormod Coalbrowskald; they had a boat and went
therein far and wide, and were not thought men of much even-dealing.
It chanced one summer that Thorgils Makson found a whale on the common
drift-lands, and forthwith he and his folk set about cutting it up.
But when the foster-brothers heard thereof they went thither, and at
first their talk had a likely look out. Thorgils offered that they
should have the half of the uncut whale; but they would have for
themselves all the uncut, or else divide all into halves, both the cut
and the uncut. Thorgils flatly refused to give up what was cut of the
whale; and thereat things grew hot between them, and forthwithal both
sides caught up their weapons and fought. Thorgeir and Thorgils fought
long together without either losing or gaining, and both were of the
eagerest. Their strife was both fierce and long, but the end of it
was, that Thorgils fell dead to earth before Thorgeir; but Thormod and
the men of Thorgils fought in another place; Thormod had the best of
that strife, and three of Thorgils' men fell before him. After the
slaying of Thorgils, his folk went back east to Midfirth, and brought
his dead body with them. Men thought that they had the greatest loss
in him. But the foster-brothers took all the whale to themselves.
This meeting Thormod tells of in that drapa that he made on Thorgeir
dead. Asmund the Greyhaired heard of the slaying of Thorgils his
kinsman; he was suitor in the case for Thorgils' slaying, he went
and took witnesses to the wounds, and summoned the case before the
Althing, for then this seemed to be law, as the case had happened in
another quarter. And so time wears on.