Viga-Glum's Saga
CHAPTER XVI
GLUM married
his daughter Thorlauga to Vigu-Skuta, of Myvatn, in the north country,
but on account of disagreement the husband caused her to return to Thverà,
and divorced her, which annoyed Glum much. Afterwards Arnor Kerlingarnef
wooed her and had her to wife, and good men are sprung from that marriage.
From this time there was a great feud between Glum and Skuta. One summer
it happened that a vagabond fellow came to Skuta and asked to be taken
in. He inquired what he had been doing, and the answered was that he had
slain a man and could not stay in the district to which he belonged. Skuta
replied, “Well, what are you ready to do to earn my protection?” “What
do you ask for?” said the other. “Why, you shall go, as sent from me,
to Glum’s house, and tell him that you want him to take charge of your
affair. I think it will turn out with reference to your meeting that he
is now on his way to the Thing. He is a good man to help any one in trouble,
if people want his aid; and it may be that he will tell you to go to Thverà
and wait for him there. You will then say that you are in too great a
strait for this, and that you would rather have some talk with him alone,
and it may be that he will tell you what to do. An any rate ask him to
let you meet in the Midárdal, which runs up from the homestead at Thverà
and in which his pasture-huts stand; say that you would be glad to find
him there on some day named for the purpose.” The man assented to all
this, and it was arranged as Skuta had proposed. Now this fellow, who
was to serve as a bait, came back to Skuta and told him the whole. “You
have done your work well,” said he, “and you had better stay with me.”
Time passed on until the day came when Glum had promised the meeting,
and then Skuta gets ready to start from home with thirty men. He rides
southward, and then west, over the heath of Vadla, and so on to the bank
which is called “Red-bank,” and there they dismount. Then Skuta says to
his men, “You will have to stay here a little while, and I will ride further
into the valley, along the side of the hill, to see if there is anything
to be got.” When he looks along the valley he sees a tall man, in a green
cloak, riding up from Thverà, whom he knows to be Glum, and gets off his
horse. He has a cape on him of two colours, one side black and the other
white, and he leaves his horse in the clearing and goes up to the pasture-hut
into which Glum has entered. Skuta holds in his hand the sword named “Fluga,”
with a helmet on his head; he goes up to the door, knocks upon the wall,
and then steps on one side close to the hut. Glum comes out, without any
weapon in his hand, and sees no one by the hut, but Skuta rushes forward
between Glum and the doorway. Then Glum knows his man, and starts away
from him. The gorge in which the river runs is near the hut. Skuta calls
to him to wait, but he says it would be all right if they were armed in
the same way, and makes for the gorge with Skuta after him. Glum jumps
right into the gorge, but Skuta looks about to see where he can get down.
Then he sees in the gorge a cloak driven along in the water, and runs
towards it, thrusting at it with his sword; but he hears a voice calling
out above him, “There is little honour to be won by spoiling people’s
clothes.” He looks up and recognizes Glum; who in fact knew that there
was a grassy bank on the edge of the stream where he jumped down. “Well,”
says Skuta, “remember one thing, Glum, you have run for it, and would
not wait for Skuta.” Glum’s answer is, “That is true enough, and I only
wish that, before sunset this day, you may have to run for it as far as
I have done.” Glum sung a verse--
“South of the river here,
I trow,
Each bush is worth a crown;
Elsewhere the forest often saves
The outlaw hunted down.” (1)
So they parted at that time;
but Glum went home, got his people together, told them what a trap had
been set for him, and expressed his desire to take vengeance for it at
once. In a short time he collected sixty men and rode up into the valley.
Skuta, after parting with Glum, got back to his horse, and riding along
the hill-side he saw the men on their way. He thought it would not be
good for him to meet them, so he made his plan, broke his spear-head off
its shaft, handled this as if it were a pole, unsaddled his horse and
rode bareback, with his cape turnd inside out, shouting as if he were
looking for sheep. Glum’s men overtook him and inquired if he had seen
any man fully armed riding over the hill? He replied that he had seen
one. “What is your name?” they asked. “I am called,” he says, “ ‘Plenty’
in the Myvatn country, but at Fiskelæk people call me ‘Scarce.’” They
answered, “You are making sport of us;” but he said he could not tell
them anything truer than what he had told them, and so he parted from
them. As soon as this was done he took up his daddle again and rode sharply
off to his own men. Glum’s people came up to him and told him they had
met a man who had answered them with a jest, and they said what his name
was. “You have made a blunder,” said Glum; “it was Skuta himself that
you fell in with. What could he say that was more true? In the Myvatn
country caves (Skuta) are ‘plenty,’ and in Fiskelæk they are ‘scarce.’
He has come pretty close to us, and we must ride after him.” So they came
up to the bank where Skuta and his men were, but there was only one path
up to it, and the position was easier to defend with thirty men that it
was to attack with sixty. Skuta then called out, “You have taken a good
deal of trouble to follow me up, and I suppose you think you haves something
to pay me for on account of your escape. No doubt you showed great presence
of mind in jumping into the gorge, and you were pretty quick of foot about
it.” “Yes,” said Glum, “and you had some reason to be afraid when you
pretended to be a sheperd belonging to the Eyjafirth people, and hid your
arms or broke some of them. I fancy you had to run quite as far as I did.”
Skuta replied, “However things may have gone up this time, try now to
attack us with double our number.” Glum’s answer was, “I think we will
part this time, whatever people may say of either of us.” So Skuta rode
away north, and Glum went home to Thverà.
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