Now there was great talk about this quarrel of theirs, and all
seemed to know that it would not settle down peacefully.
Runolf, the son of Wolf Aurpriest, east in the Dale, was a great
friend of Thrain's, and had asked Thrain to come and see him, and
it was settled that he should come east when about three weeks or
a month were wanting to winter.
Thrain bade Hrapp, and Grani, and Gunnar Lambi's son, and Lambi
Sigurd's son, and Lodinn, and Tjorvi, eight of them in all, to go
on this journey with him. Hallgerda and Thorgerda were to go
too. At the same time Thrain gave it out that he meant to stay
in the Mark with his brother Kettle, and said how many nights he
meant to be away from home.
They all of them had full arms. So they rode east across
Markfleet, and found there some gangrel women, and they begged
them to put them across the Fleet west on their horses, and they
did so.
Then they rode into the Dale, and had a hearty welcome; there
Kettle of the Mark met them, and there they sate two nights.
Both Runolf and Kettle besought Thrain that he would make up his
quarrel with Njal's sons; but he said he would never pay any
money, and answered crossly, for he said he thought himself quite
a match for Njal's sons wherever they met.
"So it may be," says Runolf; "but so far as I can see, no man has
been their match since Gunnar of Lithend died and it is likelier
that ye will both drag one another down to death."
Thrain said that was not to be dreaded.
Then Thrain fared up into the Mark, and was there two nights
more; after that he rode down into the Dale, and was sent away
from both houses with fitting gifts.
Now the Markfleet was then flowing between sheets of ice on both
sides, and there were tongues of ice bridging it across every
here and there.
Thrain said that he meant to ride home that evening, but Runolf
said that he ought not to ride home; he said, too, that it would
be more wary not to fare back as he had said he would before he
left home.
"That is fear, and I will none of it," answers Thrain.
Now those gangrel women whom they had put across the Fleet came
to Bergthorsknoll, and Bergthora asked whence they came, but they
answered, "Away east under Eyjafell."
"Then, who put you across Markfleet?" said Bergthora.
"Those," said they, "who were the most boastful and bravest clad
of men."
"Who?" asked Bergthora.
"Thrain Sigfus' son," said they, "and his company, but we thought
it best to tell thee that they were so full-tongued towards this
house, against thy husband and his sons."
"Listeners do not often hear good of themselves," says Bergthora.
After that they went their way, and Bergthora gave them gifts on
their going, and asked them when Thrain might be coming home.
They said that he would be from home four or five nights.
After that Bergthora told her sons and her son-in-law Kari, and
they talked long and low about the matter.
But that same morning when Thrain and his men rode from the east,
Njal woke up early and heard how Skarphedinn's axe came against
the panel.
Then Njal rises up, and goes out, and sees that his sons are all
there with their weapons, and Kari, his son-in-law too.
Skarphedinn was foremost. He was in a blue cape, and had a
targe, and his axe aloft on his shoulder. Next to him went
Helgi; he was in a red kirtle, had a helm on his head, and a red
shield, on which a hart was marked. Next to him went Kari; he
had on a silken jerkin, a gilded helm and shield, and on it was
drawn a lion. They were all in bright holiday clothes.
Njal called out to Skarphedinn, "Whither art thou going,
kinsman?"
"On a sheep hunt," he said.
"So it was once before," said Njal, "but then ye hunted men."
Skarphedinn laughed at that, and said, "Hear ye what the old man
says? He is not without his doubts."
"When was it that thou spokest thus before," asks Kari.
"When I slew Sigmund the White," says Skarphedinn, "Gunnar of
Lithend's kinsman."
"For what?" asks Kari.
"He had slain Thord Freedmanson, my foster-father."
Njal went home, but they fared up into the Redslips, and bided
there; thence they could see the others as soon as ever they rode
from the east out of the Dale.
There was sunshine that day and bright weather.
Now Thrain and his men ride down out of the Dale along the river
bank.
Lambi Sigurd's son said, "Shields gleam away yonder in the
Redslips when the sun shines on them, and there must be some men
lying in wait there."
"Then," says Thrain, "we will turn our way lower down the Fleet,
and then they will come to meet us if they have any business with
us."
So they turn down the Fleet. "Now they have caught sight of us,"
said Skarphedinn, "for lo! they turn their path elsewhither, and
now we have no other choice than to run down and meet them."
"Many men," said Kari, "would rather not lie in wait if the
balance of force were not more on their side than it is on ours;
they are eight, but we are five."
Now they turn down along the Fleet, and see a tongue of ice
bridging the stream lower down and mean to cross there.
Thrain and his men take their stand upon the ice away from the
tongue, and Thrain said, "What can these men want? They are
five, and we are eight."
"I guess," said Lambi Sigurd's son, "that they would still run
the risk though more men stood against them."
Thrain throws off his cloak, and takes off his helm.
Now it happened to Skarphedinn, as they ran down along the Fleet,
that his shoe-string snapped asunder, and he stayed behind.
"Why so slow, Skarphedinn?" quoth Grim.
"I am tying my shoe," he says.
"Let us get on ahead," says Kari; "methinks he will not be slower
than we."
So they turn off to the tongue, and run as fast as they can.
Skarphedinn sprang up as soon as he was ready, and had lifted his
axe, "the ogress of war," aloft, and runs right down to the
Fleet. But the Fleet was so deep that there was no fording it
for a long way up or down.
A great sheet of ice had been thrown up by the flood on the other
side of the Fleet as smooth and slippery as glass, and there
Thrain and his men stood in the midst of the sheet.
Skarphedinn takes a spring into the air, and leaps over the
stream between the icebanks, and does not check his course, but
rushes still onwards with a slide. The sheet of ice was very
slippery, and so he went as fast as a bird flies. Thrain was
just about to put his helm on his head; and now Skarphedinn bore
down on them, and hews at Thrain with his axe, "the ogress of
war," and smote him on the head, and clove him down to the teeth,
so that his jaw-teeth fell out on the ice. This feat was done
with such a quick sleight that no one could get a blow at him; he
glided away from them at once at full speed. Tjorvi, indeed,
threw his shield before him on the ice, but he leapt over it, and
still kept his feet, and slid quite to the end of the sheet of
ice.
There Kari and his brothers came to meet him.
"This was done like a man," says Kari.
"Your share is still left," says Skarphedinn, and sang a song:
"To the strife of swords not slower,
After all, I came than you,
For with ready stroke the sturdy
Squanderer of wealth I felled;
But since Grim's and Helgi's sea-stag (1)
Norway's Earl erst took and stripped,
Now 'tis time for sea-fire bearers (2)
Such dishonour to avenge."
And this other song he sang:
"Swiftly down I dashed my weapon,
Gashing giant, byrnie-breacher (3),
She, the noisy ogre's namesake (4),
Soon with flesh the ravens glutted;
Now your words to Hrapp remember,
On broad ice now rouse the storm,
With dull crash war's eager ogress
Battle's earliest note hath sung."
"That befits us well, and we will do it well," says Helgi.
Then they turn up towards them. Both Grim and Helgi see where
Hrapp is, and they turned on him at once. Hrapp hews at Grim
there and then with his axe; Helgi sees this and cuts at Hrapp's
arm, and cut it off, and down fell the axe.
"In this," says Hrapp, "thou hast done a most needful work, for
this hand hath wrought harm and death to many a man."
"And so here an end shall be put to it," says Grim; and with
that he ran him through with a spear, and then Hrapp fell down
dead.
Tjorvi turns against Kari and hurls a spear at him. Kari leapt
up in the air, and the spear flew below his feet. Then Kari
rushes at him, and hews at him on the breast with his sword, and
the blow passed at once into his chest, and he got his death
there and then.
Then Skarphedinn seizes both Gunnar Lambi's son, and Grani
Gunnar's son, and said, "Here have I caught two whelps! but what
shall we do with them?
"It is in thy power," says Helgi, "to slay both or either of
them, if you wish them dead."
"I cannot find it in my heart to do both -- help Hogni and slay
his brother," says Skarphedinn.
"Then the day will once come," says Helgi, "when thou wilt wish
that thou hadst slain him, for never will he be true to thee, nor
will any one of the others who are now here."
"I shall not fear them," answers Skarphedinn.
After that they gave peace to Grani Gunnar's son, and Gunnar
Lambi's son, and Lambi Sigurd's son, and Lodinn.
After that they went down to the Fleet where Skarphedinn had
leapt over it, and Kari and the others measured the length of the
leap with their spear-shafts, and it was twelve ells (5).
Then they turned homewards, and Njal asked what tidings. They
told him all just as it had happened, and Njal said, "These are
great tidings, and it is more likely that hence will come the
death of one of my sons, if not more evil."
Gunnar Lambi's son bore the body of Thrain with him to Gritwater,
and he was laid in a cairn there.