The Story Of Gunnlaug The Worm-Tongue And Raven The Skald Part 6

The women sat on the dais, and Helga the Fair sat next to the bride.

Oft she turned her eyes on Gunnlaug, thereby proving the saw, "Eyes will bewray if maid love man."

Gunnlaug was well arrayed, and had on him that goodly raiment that King Sigtrygg had given him; and now he was thought far above all other men, because of many things, both strength, and goodliness, and growth.

There was little mirth among folk at this wedding. But on the day when all men were making ready to go away the women stood up and got ready to go home. Then went Gunnlaug to talk to Helga, and long they talked together: but Gunnlaug sang:--

"Light-heart lived the Worm-tongue All day long no longer In mountain-home, since Helga Had name of wife of Raven; Nought foresaw thy father, Hardener white of fight-thaw, What my words should come to.

--The maid to gold was wedded."

And again he sang:--

"Worst reward I owe them, Father thine, O wine-may, And mother, that they made thee So fair beneath thy maid-gear; For thou, sweet field of sea-flame, All joy hast slain within me.-- Lo, here, take it, loveliest E'er made of lord and lady!"

And therewith Gunnlaug gave Helga the cloak, Ethelred's-gift, which was the fairest of things, and she thanked him well for the gift.

Then Gunnlaug went out, and by that time riding-horses had been brought home and saddled, and among them were many very good ones; and they were all tied up in the road. Gunnlaug leaps on to a horse, and rides a hand-gallop along the homefield up to a place where Raven happened to stand just before him; and Raven had to draw out of his way. Then Gunnlaug said,--

"No need to slink aback, Raven, for I threaten thee nought as at this time; but thou knowest forsooth, what thou hast earned.".

Raven answered and sang,--

"G.o.d of wound-flamed glitter, Glorier of fight-G.o.ddess, Must we fall a-fighting For fairest kirtle-bearer?

Death-staffs many such-like Fair as she is are there In south-lands o'er the sea floods.

Sooth saith he who knoweth."

"Maybe there are many such, but they do not seem so to me," said Gunnlaug.

Therewith Illugi and Thorstein ran up to them, and would not have them fight.

Then Gunnlaug sang,--

"The fair-hued golden G.o.ddess For gold to Raven sold they, (Raven my match as men say) While the mighty isle-king, Ethelred, in England From eastward way delayed me, Wherefore to gold-waster Waneth tongue's speech-hunger."

Hereafter both rode home, and all was quiet and tidingless that winter through; but Raven had nought of Helga's fellows.h.i.+p after her meeting with Gunnlaug.

CHAPTER XIV. Of the Holmgang at the Althing.

Now in summer men ride a very many to the Althing: Illugi the Blacky and his sons with him, Gunnlaug and Hermund; Thorstein Egilson and Kolsvein his son; Onund, of Mossfell, and his sons all, and Sverting, Hafr-Biorn's son. Skapti yet held the spokesmans.h.i.+p-at-law.

One day at the Thing, as men went thronging to the Hill of Laws, and when the matters of the law were done there, then Gunnlaug craved silence, and said:--

"Is Raven, the son of Onund, here?"

He said he was.

Then spake Gunnlaug, "Thou well knowest that thou hast got to wife my avowed bride, and thus hast thou made thyself my foe. Now for this I bid thee to holm here at the Thing, in the holm of the Axe-water, when three nights are gone by."

Raven answers, "This is well bidden, as was to be looked for of thee, and for this I am ready, whenever thou wiliest it."

Now the kin of each deemed this a very ill thing. But, at that time it was lawful for him who thought himself wronged by another to call him to fight on the holm.

So when three nights had gone by they got ready for the holmgang, and Illugi the Black followed his son thither with a great following. But Skapti, the lawman, followed Raven, and his father and other kinsmen of his.

Now before Gunnlaug went upon the holm he sang,--

"Out to isle ofeel-field Dight am I to hie me: Give, O G.o.d, thy singer With glaive to end the striving.

Here shall I the head cleave Of Helga's love's devourer, At last my bright sword bringeth Sundering of head and body."

Then Raven answered and sang,--

"Thou, singer, knowest not surely Which of us twain shall gain it; With edge for leg-swathe eager, Here are the wound-scythes bare now.

In whatso-wise we wound us, The tidings from the Thing here, And fame of thanes' fair doings, The fair young maid shall hear it."

Hermund held s.h.i.+eld for his brother, Gunnlaug; but Sverting, Hafr-Biorn's son, was Raven's s.h.i.+eld-bearer. Whoso should be wounded was to ransom himself from the holm with three marks of silver.

Now, Raven's part it was to deal the first blow, as he was the challenged man. He hewed at the upper part of Gunnlaug's s.h.i.+eld, and the sword brake asunder just beneath the hilt, with so great might he smote; but the point of the sword flew up from the s.h.i.+eld and struck Gunnlaug's cheek, whereby he got just grazed; with that their fathers ran in between them, and many other men.

"Now," said Gunnlaug, "I call Raven overcome, as he is weaponless."

"But I say that thou art vanquished, since thou art wounded," said Raven.

Now, Gunnlaug was nigh mad, and very wrathful, and said it was not tried out yet.

Illugi, his father, said they should try no more for that time.

Gunnlaug said, "Beyond all things I desire that I might in such wise meet Raven again, that thou, father, wert not anigh to part us."

And thereat they parted for that time, and all men went back to their booths.

But on the second day after this it was made law in the law-court that, henceforth, all holmgangs should be forbidden; and this was done by the counsel of all the wisest men that were at the Thing; and there, indeed, were all the men of most counsel in all the land. And this was the last holmgang fought in Iceland, this, wherein Gunnlaug and Raven fought.

But this Thing was the third most thronged Thing that has been held in Iceland; the first was after Njal's burning, the second after the Heath-slaughters.

Now, one morning, as the brothers Hermund and Gunnlaug went to Axe-water to wash, on the other side went many women towards the river, and in that company was Helga the Fair. Then said Hermund,--

"Dost thou see thy friend Helga there on the other side of the river?"

"Surely, I see her," says Gunnlaug, and withal he sang:--

"Born was she for men's bickering: Sore bale hath wrought the war-stemy And I yearned ever madly To hold that oak-tree golden.

To me then, me destroyer Of swan-mead's flame, unneedful This looking on the dark-eyed, This golden land's beholding."

Therewith they crossed the river, and Helga and Gunnlaug spake awhile together, and as the brothers crossed the river eastward back again, Helga stood and gazed long after Gunnlaug.

Then Gunnlaug looked back and sang:--