Egil’s Saga - E. Eddison R.

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men aboard of each: Kveldulf steered one, and the other Skallagrim. Row they now, and look for the ship; but when they come there where the ship lay, then put they in to land.

      Hallvard and his had tilted their ship and had then laid them down to sleep; but when Kveldulf and his came at them, then leapt up the watchmen that sat by the gangway head, and called out to the ship: bade men stand up: said that unpeace was come upon them. Hallvard and his leapt to their weapons. But when Kveldulf and his came to the gangway head,1 then went he out on the stern gangway, but Skallagrim went on the fore gangway. Kveldulf had in his hand a byrny-troll.2 But when he was come aboard the ship then bade he his men go on the outer side along the gunwale and hew the tilt out of its props, but himself raged aft towards the poop; and so it is said, that there he ran berserk, and many were they of his company that then ran berserk. They slew all those men that came in the way of them; in like same manner wrought Skallagrim, whereso he went upon the ship. That father and son slacked not until the ship was cleared.

      But when Kveldulf came aft to the poop, he swung aloft the byrny-troll and hewed at Hallvard through helm and head, and it sank all in to the shaft: wrenched he it then so hard towards him that he bare Hallvard up in the air and slung him overboard.

      Skallagrim cleared the fore-stem and slew Sigtrygg: a mort of men leapt into the water, but Skallagrim’s men took the boat that they had thither had and rowed to them and slew all them that were swimming: there perished of Hallvard’s men, in all, more than fifty men, but Skallagrim and his took the ship that Hallvard and his had had thither, and all the fee that was aboard her.

      They laid hand on two or three men, them that seemed to them of least might or worth, and gave them peace and had of them tidings: learnt what men had been aboard that ship, and likewise what manner of journey they had been bound on. And when they understood all the truth, then kenned they the slain, that which lay on the ship: found they then that for sure, that a greater lot of the men had leapt overboard and had been lost than had fallen on the ship. Those sons of Gutthorm had leapt overboard and had been lost: then was one of them twelve winters old, and the other ten, and the hopefullest of men.

      So now let Skallagrim go free those men that he had given peace to, and bade them go find Harald the King and say unto him carefully these tidings that were there come about, and this too, who had been in it. “You shall”, said he, “bear to the King this ditty:3

      Now’s hersir righted

      And King quited: Corpse-bird and beast On Yngling’s bairns feast. Hurl’d hewn on the sea Floats Hallvard’s bodie. Grey eagles tear Wounds of Sharp-fare.”

      Thereafter Grim and his folk flitted the ship with her lading out to their own ships; changed then the ships: loaded her which they had then won, and emptied that which they had before and which was smaller: bare stones aboard of her, and brake holes in her, and sank her: sailed therewithal out into the deep, soon as a fair breeze blew.

      So is it said of those men that were shape-strong or of them on whom was the berserk-gang, that for so long as that held, they were so strong that there was no holding against them, but forthwith when that was passed over, then were they unmightier than of wont. And it was so with Kveldulf that, as soon as the berserk rage was gone from him, then knew he his weariness after those onslaughts he had made, and then was he altogether without might, so that he laid him down in his bed.

      Now the breeze bare them out into the deep. Kveldulf captained that ship which they had taken from Hallvard and his men. They had a fair breeze and held much together in their voyage, so that they had for long whiles sight each of other. But when the main deep was passed, then took Kveldulf’s sickness the upper hand with him. And when it drew toward this, that he was like to die, then called he his shipmates to him and said to them that he thought that likely, that now would soon be a parting of ways for them: “I have not”, said he, “been a man used to sickness, and if so it fare as methinks now likeliest, that I die, then make me a chest and let me fare overboard; and this goeth all another way than I deemed it should be, if I shall not come to Iceland and there take land. Ye shall bear my greeting unto Grim, my son, then when ye find one another, and say to him this withal: if so betide that he come to Iceland, and it so come about (though that may be thought unlikely) that I be there before you, then let him take to him his dwelling as near as may be to that place where I shall have come aland”.

      A little thereafter died Kveldulf. His shipmates did so, even as he before had spoken, and laid him in a chest and thereafter shot it overboard.

      There was a man named Grim, the son of Thorir the son of Ketil Keelfarer, a man of great kindred and a wealthy. He was a shipmate of Kveldulf’s. He had been an old friend of that father and son, and had been on journeys both with them and with Thorolf. And he had gotten the wrath of the King for that sake. He took charge of the ship after Kveldulf was dead. But when they were come off Iceland, then sailed they from the south toward the land: they sailed west along the land, because they had heard say that Ingolf had there taken up his dwelling, but when they came round Reekness4 and they saw the firth open up before them, then stood they in to the firth with both their ships. The gale blew fierce, and great rain and fog; and now the ships parted. They sailed in up Burgfirth till there was an end of all skerries; then cast anchor till the gale abated and the air cleared; then waited they for flood-tide, and therewith flitted their ship up into a certain river-mouth: that is called Gufa. They brought the ship up the river so far as they might: and now bare the lading off the ship, and made their dwelling there the first winter. They kenned the land along by the sea both up the firth and down, and when they had fared but a short way, then found they where in a certain wick was cast ashore the chest of Kveldulf. They flitted the chest to that ness that was there,5 set it down there, and piled it with stones.

      SKALLAGRIM came there aland where a great ness went out into the sea, and a narrow neck landward of the ness, and there bare the lading off the ship. That called they Knarrarness.

      Thereafter Skallagrim kenned the land, and there was great marshlands and wide woods,1 long betwixt fell and foreshore, seal-takings enow and great catch of fish. But when they kenned the land south along the sea, then was there before them a great firth;2 but when they fared in along that firth then stayed they not from their faring until they found their fellows, Grim the Halogalander and those fellows of his. That was a joyful meeting: said they unto Skallagrim of his father’s death, and that withal, that Kveldulf was there come aland and they had laid him in earth there. And now brought they Skallagrim to the place, and so it seemed to him as if it should be but a short way thence to where a good stead would be for building of a house.

      Fared Grim then away and back to his shipmates, and they sate there, of either part, through the winter where they had come aland. Then took Skallagrim land betwixt fell and foreshore, all the Myres out as far as Selalon and inland as far as Burglava, and south to Havenfell, and all that land that is marked off by the river-waters falling to the sea. He flitted his ship next spring south to the firth and in into that inlet which was nearest to that where Kveldulf had come to land, and set his house there, and called it Burg, and the firth Burgfirth; and so too the countryside up from there they named after the firth.

      To Grim the Halogalander gave he dwelling south of Burgfirth, there where it was called Hvanneyri.3 A short way out from thence stretches inland a wick, nought great: they found there many ducks, and called it Andakil,4 and Andakilswater that which there fell into the sea. Up from that river to the river that was called Grimswater, there between them had Grim his land.

      In the spring, when Skallagrim let drive his livestock up along the sea-shore then came they to a certain little ness, and caught there some swans, and called it Alptaness.

      Skallagrim gave land to his shipmates.5 To Ani gave he land betwixt Longwater and Hafslech, and he dwelt at Anisbrent: his son was Onund Sjoni,6 by whom arose the strife between Thorstein and Odd-a-Tongue.

      Grani dwelt at Granistead in Digraness.

      To Thorbiorn Krumm gave

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