Chapter 28

The Wooing of Asdis, Stir's Daughter.

Halli answered: "No shame it is to thee though I talk with thy daughter, nor will I do that to thy dishonour; but I will tell thee straightly that I have so much love in my heart for her, that I know not how to put it out of my mind. And now," said Halli, "will I seek for fast friendship with thee, and pray thee to give me thy daughter Asdis, and thereto in return will I put my friendship and true service, and so much strength through the power of my brother Leikner, that there shall not be in Iceland so much glory from two men's services as we two shall give thee; and our furtherance shall strengthen thy chieftainship more than if thou gavest thy daughter to the mightiest bonder of Broadfirth, and that shall be in return for our not being strong of purse. But if thou wilt not do for me my desire, that shall cut our friendship atwain; and then each must do as he will in his own matter; and little avail will it be to thee then to grumble about my talk with Asdis."

When he had thus spoken, Stir was silent, and thought it somewhat hard to answer, but he said in a while:

"Whether is this spoken with all thine heart, or is it a vain word, and seekest thou a quarrel?"

"So shalt thou answer," said Halli, "as if mine were no foolish word; and all our friendship lies on what thine answer will be in this matter."

Stir answered: "Then will I talk the thing over with my friends, and take counsel with them how I shall answer this."

Said Halli: "The matter shalt thou talk over with whomsoever pleases thee within three nights, but I will not that this answer to me drag on longer than that, because I will not be a dangler over this betrothal."

And therewithal they parted.

The next morning Stir rode east to Holyfell, and when he came there, Snorri bade him abide; but Stir said that he would talk with him, and then ride away.

Snorri asked if he had some troublous matter on hand to talk of. "So it seems to me," said Stir.

Snorri said: "Then we will go up on to the Holy Fell, (1) for those redes have been the last to come to nought that have been taken there."

"Therein thou shalt have thy will," said Stir.

So they went upon to the mount, and there sat talking all day till evening, nor did any man know what they said together; and then Stir rode home.

But the next morning Stir and Halli went to talk together, and Halli asked Stir how his case stood.

Stir answered: "It is the talk of men that thou seemest somewhat bare of money, so what wilt thou do for this, since thou hast no fee to lay down therefor?"

Halli answered: "I will do what I may, since money fails me."

Says Stir: "I see that it will mislike thee if I give thee not my daughter; so now will I do as men of old, and will let thee do some great deed for this bridal."

"What is it, then?" said Halli.

"Thou shalt break up," says Stir, "a road through the lava out to Bearhaven, and raise a boundary-wall over the lava betwixt our lands, and make a burg (2) here at the head of the lava; and when this work is done, I will give thee Asdis my daughter."

Halli answered: "I am not wont to work, yet will I say yea to this, if thereby I may the easier have the maiden for wife."

Stir said that this then should be their bargain.

Thereafter they began to make the road, and the greatest of man's-work it is; (3) and they raised the wall whereof there are still tokens, and thereafter wrought the burg. But while they were at the work, Stir let build a hot bath at his house at Lava, and it was dug down in the ground, and there was a window over the furnace, so that it might be fed from without, and wondrous hot was that place.

Now when either work was nigh finished, on the last day whereon Halli and his brother were at work on the burg, it befell that thereby passed Asdis,

Stir's daughter, and close to the homestead it was. Now she had done on her best attire, and when Halli and his brother spake to her, she answered nought.

Then sang Halli this stave:

"O fair-foot, O linen-girt goddess that beareth The flame that is hanging from fair limbs adown! Whither now hast thou dight thee thy ways to be wending, O fair wight, O tell me, and lie not in telling? For all through the winter, O wise-hearted warden Of the board of the chess-play, not once I beheld thee From out of the houses fare this-wise afoot, So goodly of garments, so grand of array."

"The ground of the gold-sun that gleams in the isle-belt But seldom hath dight her the headgear so stately. The fir of the fire of the perch of the falcon Is laden with load of fine work of the loom. O ground strewn with jewels, O fair spoken goddess Of beakers the bright, now I bid thee be telling What is it that under thy pride lieth lurking? What hast thou thereunder of more than we wot?"

But when they were come into the bath, Stir let the bath-chamber be closed, and had stones laid on the trap-door which was over the fore-chamber, and spread a raw and slimy neat's-hide down by the top entrance thereof; and then he let feed the furnace from without through that window which was thereover.

Then waxed the bath so hot that the Bareserks might not abide it, and leaped up at the door, and Halli brake open the trap-door and got out, but fell on the hide, and Stir gave him his death-blow; but when Leikner would have sprung out by the opening, Stir thrust him through and he fell back into the bath, and died there. Then Stir let lay out the corpses, and they were carried out into the lava, and were cast into that dale which is in the lava, and is so deep that one can see nought therefrom but the heavens above it, and that is beside that self-same road.

Now over the burial of the Bareserks Stir sang this stave:

"Methought that the raisers of riot of spear-mote Would nowise and never be meek and mild-hearted, Or hearken the bidding of them that are hardening The onrush of Ali's high wind and hard weather. No'dread have I now of their dealings against me, Of the masterful bearing of the lads of the battle; For now I, the slayer of tarrying, truly, With my brand have marked out a meet place for the Bareserks."

Chapter 29

Of The Evil Dealings Of Thorolf Halt-Foot.

Now on a day Thorolf rode in to Ulfar's-fell to find Ulfar the bonder. He was a great furtherer of field-work, and much spoken of for this, that he saved his hay quicker than other men, and was so lucky with sheep withal, that his sheep never died of clemming or from storms.

So when Thorolf met him, he asked him what counsel he gave him as to how he should set about his husbandry, and what his mind told him about the summer, if it would be dry or not.

Ulfar answered: "No better rede can I give thee than what I follow myself. I shall let bear out the scythe to-day, and mow down all I may this week, because I deem it will be rainy; but I guess that after that it will be very dry for the next half month."

So things went as he had said, for it was often seen that he could foretell the weather better than other men.

So Thorolf went home, and he had with him many workmen, and now he let straightway begin the out-meadow mowing; and the weather was even as Ulfar had said.

Now Thorolf and Ulfar had a meadow in common upon the neck, and either of them at first mowed much hay, and then they spread it, and raked it up into big cocks. But one morning early when Thorolf arose, he looked out and saw that the weather was thick, and deemed that the dry tide was failing, and called to his thralls to rise and carry the hay together, and work daylong all they might, "for it seems to me," quoth he, "that the weather is not to be trusted."

The thralls did on their clothes and went to the hay-work. But Thorolf piled up the hay and egged them on to work at their most might that it might speed at its fastest.

That same morning Ulfar looked out early, and when he came in, the workmen asked him of the weather, but he bade them sleep on in peace. "The weather is good," said he, "and it will clear off to-day. Therefore to-day shall ye mow in the home-field, but to-morrow will we save such hay as we have up on the neck."

Now the weather went even as he said; and when the evening was wearing on, Ulfar sent a man up to the neck, to look to the hay that stood there in cocks. But Thorolf Halt-foot carried hay with three draught-oxen the day through, and by the third hour after noontide they had saved all the hay that was his. Then he bade carry Ulfar's hay withal into his garth; and they did as he bade them.

But when Ulfar's messenger saw that, he ran and told his master. Then Ulfar went up on to the neck, and was exceeding wroth, and asked Thorolf why he robbed him. Thorolf said he heeded not what he said, and raved and was ugly to deal with, and they well-nigh came to blows. But Ulfar saw that he had no choice but to go away. So he went straightway to Arnkel, and told him of his scathe, and prayed for his warding, "else," he gave out, "all would be gone by the board."

Arnkel said he would bid his father pay boot for the hay, but said that none the less it sorely misgave him that nought would come of it.

So when father and son met, Arnkel bade his father pay Ulfar boot for the taking of the hay; but Thorolf said the thrall was far too rich already. Arnkel prayed him to do so much for his word as to atone for that hay. Then said Thorolf that he would do nought therefor but worsen Ulfar's lot; and therewith they parted.

Now when Arnkel met Ulfar, he told him of Thorolf's answer; but Ulfar deemed that Arnkel had followed up his case coldly, and said that he might have had his way with his father if he had chosen to do so.

So Arnkel paid Ulfar what he would for the hay; and when father and son next met, Arnkel claimed the price of the hay from his father, but Thorolf gave no better answers, and they parted in great wrath. But the next autumn Arnkel let drive from the fells seven oxen of his father's, and had them all slaughtered for his own household needs. That misliked Thorolf beyond measure, and he claimed their price of Arnkel; but he said that they should be in return for Ulfar's hay. Then Thorolf liked matters a great deal worse than before, and laid the whole thing on Ulfar, and said he should feel him therefor.


ENDNOTES:

(1) "Then we will go up unto the Holy Fell," etc. It is hardly a mere accident that, as Snorri here proposes to Stir to discuss a weighty matter on the top of Holy-Fell, so Thorstein Egilson proposes to Illugi the Black to go to the top of the "borg", volcanic cone, above his homestead of Burg, to talk over the betrothal of Gunnlaug Wormtongue to his daughter, which was very much against his mind (Story of Gunnlaug the Wormtongue, ch. v., in Three Northern Love-stories). Both incidents stand clearly in connection with ancestral worship, which, of course, is quite evident in the case of Holy-Fell, into which the Thorsnessings believed they died (ch. iv.). Ancestral mounds were from ancient times raised in the neighbourhood of the ancestral abode, whence the statement, "at sitja a haugi", to be sitting on the how of the forefathers. Thus we read of King Refit (Volsungasaga, ch. ii.) that, being troubled in mind for having no heir born unto himself, he sat one day on the ancestral mound praying Odin to allay his trouble -- for that must be the drift of the passage, -- and the god heard his prayer, and sent him a valkyrja in the shape of a crow, with the remedy required. Again, King Olaf Tryggvason sends Hallfred Troubleskald to Thorleif the Sage, an inconvertible heathen, to slay him or blind him. "Thorleif," says the saga, "was wont, even as was greatly the custom among ancient folk, to sit at long times together out on a certain mound, not far away from the homestead, and so it happened even now, when Hallfred came" (Olaf Tryggvason Saga, in Fornmannasogur, ii. 59). To this same group of ideas must be referred the desire of certain settlers to be buried at a high place where they could overlook their own settlement, and thereto again links itself the belief in mountain powers, such as Bard Snaefellsas and others. Back (2) "Berg"; read sheep-fold. Back (3) "Thereafter they began to make the road, and the greatest of man's work it is." This same road is still in preservation, and is thus described by Dr. Kalund: "It is the highway, even to this day, which travellers pass going from Bearhaven eastward into the Holy-Fell parish, and passes through the northern spur of the lava which from the Bareserks is still called the Bareserks'-lava. Here the lava is less rough than further to the south, and the road is partly built across the shore inclines of it. Here and there, where the incline is too steep, the gorges are filled with piled-up blocks, while in other places holes over which the road had to go have been filled up, and along the road there are lying in many places heaps of rejected stones covered over with moss. In this way a road has been built not so very different from other lava paths, only more even and perhaps broader than usually. In the middle of the lava one comes upon a fence made of single stones piled on the top of each other, which forms the boundary wall between the lands of Bearhaven and Bareserks'-lava (Lava, Stir's house), and seems never to have served any other purpose. A little further to the east the cairn of the Bareserks is still shown. Here the road goes across a scoop which it has been necessary to fill up to some extent, the filling-up matter leaning against natural blocks of lava. On either side here are to be seen one of those cauldron-formed dips which are characteristic of the lava. The cauldron on the right (south side), which lies at a little distance from the road, is the largest and deepest, and answers so completely to the description of the saga of the place where the Bareserks were encairned, that one would at once conclude that this must have been their burial-place. However, the cairn is shown on the left-hand (northern) side of the road, where an oblong heap of stones stretches down the incline of this lesser cauldron to which the words of the saga do not apply quite so well. It is asserted that in the beginning of this century the cairn was broken up, and that in it were found the bones of two men, not particularly large, but stout and heavy. (*) Some distance further to the east, in the skirt of the lava on the right-hand side of the road, there is still to be seen the fold erected by the Bareserks, now called Crossfold. It is a common fold, the walls being built up of stone, one lava-block on the top of the other forming the thickness of the wall. Its irregular form, arising from natural lava-formations being utilized for walls, has given the name to it. It is used by the occupier of the land in spring and autumn, and produces yearly a crop of hay." -- Beskr. af Island, i. 433-34, cf. Henderson's Iceland, ii. 62. (*) But in Eggert Olafsens og Biarne Povelsens Reise igiennem Island, i. 367, it is stated that "in these times the cairn has been dug into, but no remains were found." "These times" must refer to 1754, when the first-named explorer examined the country-sides of Thorsness Thing, and wrote down the diary which formed the basis of the joint work which was published at Soro, 1772, and is still a record of great value. Either the earlier exploration of the cairn was insufficient, or the later is mythical. Back