Asgrim and his fellows went to Thorkel Foulmouth's booth, and
Asgrim said then to his companions, "This booth Thorkel Foulmouth
owns, a great champion, and it were worth much to us to get
his help. We must here take heed in everything, for he is self-
willed and bad tempered; and now I will beg thee, Skarphedinn,
not to let thyself be led into our talk."
Skarphedinn smiled at that. He was so clad, he had on a blue
kirtle and grey breeks, and black shoes on his feet, coming high
up his leg; he had a silver belt about him, and that same axe in
his hand with which he slew Thrain, and which he called the
"ogress of war," a round buckler, and a silken band round his
brow, and his hair brushed back behind his ears. He was the most
soldier-like of men, and by that all men knew him. He went in
his appointed place, and neither before nor behind.
Now they went into the booth and into its inner chamber. Thorkel
sate in the middle of the cross-bench, and his men away from him
on all sides. Asgrim hailed him, and Thorkel took the greeting
well, and Asgrim said to him, "For this have we come hither, to
ask help of thee, and that thou wouldst come to the Court with
us."
"What need can ye have of my help," said Thorkel, "when ye have
already gone to Gudmund; he must surely have promised thee his
help?"
"We could not get his help," says Asgrim.
"Then Gudmund thought the suit likely to make him foes," said
Thorkel; "and so no doubt it will be, for such deeds are the
worst that have ever been done; nor do I know what can have
driven you to come hither to me, and to think that I should be
easier to undertake your suit than Gudmund, or that I would back
a wrongful quarrel."
Then Asgrim held his peace, and thought it would be hard work to
win him over.
Then Thorkel went on and said, "Who is that big and ugly fellow,
before whom four men go, pale-faced and sharp featured, and
unlucky-looking, and cross-grained?"
"My name is Skarphedinn," said Skarphedinn, "and thou hast no
right to pick me out, a guiltless man, for thy railing. It never
has befallen me to make my father bow down before me, or to have
fought against him, as thou didst with thy father. Thou hast
ridden little to the Althing, or toiled in quarrels at it, and no
doubt it is handier for thee to mind thy milking pails at home
than to be here at Axewater in idleness. But stay, it were as
well if thou pickedst out from thy teeth that steak of mare's
rump which thou atest ere thou rodest to the Thing while thy
shepherd looked on all the while, and wondered that thou couldst
work such filthiness!"
Then Thorkel sprang up in mickle wrath, and clutched his short
sword and said, "This sword I got in Sweden when I slew the
greatest champion, but since then I have slain many a man with
it, and as soon as ever I reach thee I will drive it through
thee, and thou shalt take that for thy bitter words."
Skarphedinn stood with his axe aloft, and smiled scornfully and
said, "This axe I had in my hand when I leapt twelve ells across
Markfleet and slew Thrain Sigfus' son, and eight of them stood
before me, and none of them could touch me. Never have I aimed
weapon at man that I have not smitten him."
And with that he tore himself from his brothers, and Kari his
brother-in-law, and strode forward to Thorkel.
Then Skarphedinn said, "Now, Thorkel Foulmouth, do one of these
two things: sheathe thy sword and sit thee down, or I drive the
axe into thy head and cleave thee down to the chine."
Then Thorkel sate him down and sheathed the sword, and such a
thing never happened to him either before or since.
Then Asgrim and his band go out, and Skarphedinn said, "Whither
shall we now go?"
"Home to our booths," answered Asgrim.
"Then we fare back to our booths wearied of begging," says
Skarphedinn.
"In many places," said Asgrim, "hast thou been rather sharp-
tongued, but here now, in what Thorkel had a share methinks thou
hast only treated him as is fitting,"
Then they went home to their booths, and told Njal, word for
word, all that had been done.
"Things," he said, "draw on to what must be."
Now Gudmund the Powerful heard what has passed between Thorkel
and Skarphedinn, and said, "Ye all know how things fared between
us and the men of Lightwater, but I have never suffered such
scorn and mocking at their hands as has befallen Thorkel from
Skarphedinn, and this is just as it should be."
Then he said to Einar of Thvera, his brother, "Thou shalt go with
all my band, and stand by Njal's sons when the courts go out to
try suits; but if they need help next summer, then I myself will
yield them help."
Einar agreed to that, and sent and told Asgrim, and Asgrim said,
"There is no man like Gudmund for nobleness of mind," and then
he told it to Njal.