Njal's Saga (36 page)

These were the chieftains with Flosi: Kol, the son of Thorstein
Broad-belly and the nephew of Hall of Sida; Hroald Ozurarson from Breida; Ozur the son of Onund Box-back; Thorstein the Fair, son of Geirleif; Glum Hildisson; Modolf Ketilsson; Thorir the son of Thord Illugi of Mortunga; Flosi's kinsmen Kolbein and Egil; Ketil Sigfusson and his brother Mord; Thorkel and Lambi; Grani Gunnarsson, Gun-nar Lambason and his brother Sigurd; Ingjald of Keldur; and Hroar Hamundarson.

Flosi said to the Sigfussons, ‘Choose the man you think best suited to be our leader, since someone will have to be in charge.'

Ketil answered, ‘If the choice is up to us brothers, we would all choose you to lead us. Many things argue for that – you are well born, a great chieftain, unbending and clever. We think you're the best one to look after our interests in this matter.'

Flosi spoke: ‘It's fitting that I go along with your request. Now I'll lay out the course we will take. It's my advice that everyone ride home from the Thing and look after his farm this summer as long as the haymaking is in process. I too will ride home and stay there this summer. On the Lord's Day which falls eight weeks before winter
¹
I will have mass sung for me at home and then ride west across Lomagnupssand. Each of us will take two horses. I won't add more men to those who have just now sworn oaths, because we have quite enough as long as everyone lives up to his oath. I'll ride that Lord's Day, and the night too, and by early evening of the second day of the week I'll be at Thrihyrning ridge. All of you who are bound by oath should have come there by then, and if anyone who has joined our cause has not come, he will lose nothing but his life – if we have our way.'

Ketil said, ‘How will you be able to leave home on the Lord's Day and arrive at Thrihyrning ridge on the second day of the week?'

Flosi spoke: ‘I will ride up from Skaftartunga and keep to the north of Eyjafjallajokul glacier, and then go down into Godaland, and this can be done if I ride hard. And now I'll tell you the rest of my plan – when we're all together we'll ride to Bergthorshvol in full force and attack the Njalssons with fire and iron, and not leave until they're all dead. You must keep this plan a secret, for the lives of all of us are at stake. Now let's take our horses and ride home.'

They went back to their booths. Flosi had their horses saddled and then they rode home and did not wait for anyone. Flosi did not want to meet his father-in-law Hall, for he was quite certain that Hall would oppose strong measures.

Njal and his sons rode home from the Thing, and they all stayed there that summer. Njal asked Kari whether he was thinking of riding east to his farm at Dyrholmar.

Kari answered, ‘I won't be riding east, because one fate awaits your sons and me.'

Njal thanked him and said that he had expected as much from him.

There were close to twenty-five men in fighting form at Berg-thorshvol, including the servants.

One day Hrodny Hoskuldsdottir came to Keldur. Her brother Ingjald welcomed her warmly. She did not respond to the greeting, and asked him to step out with her. He did as she asked and went out. They walked together away from the farm. Then she grabbed at him and they sat down.

She spoke: ‘Is it true that you've sworn an oath to attack Njal and his sons and kill them?'

He answered, ‘It's true.'

‘You're a real back-stabber,' she said, ‘considering that Njal has saved you three times from outlawry.'

‘But the way it is now,' he said, ‘my life's at risk if I don't do this.'

‘That's not so,' she said. ‘You'll live on, and you'll be called a good man as long as you don't betray the one to whom you owe the most.'

Then she took a linen cap out of her pouch, covered with blood and full of holes, and she spoke: ‘Hoskuld Njalsson was wearing this cap when they killed him. It doesn't seem at all right to me that you should help those who brought that about.'

He answered, ‘Then I will not take any action against Njal, no matter what that may lead to. But I know that they're going to make things difficult for me.'

She said, ‘You could do Njal a great service now by telling him their plans.'

‘That I will not do,' said Ingjald, ‘because I would deserve the scorn of all men if I told what they confided to me. But it's a manly thing to break away from their cause when I know that they'll take vengeance. Tell Njal and his sons to be on their guard all summer and keep many men at hand – this sound advice will serve him well.'

Then Hrodny went to Bergthorshvol and told Njal this whole conversation. Njal thanked her and said she had done well – ‘for if he, of all men, opposed me it would be the worst sort of wrong.'

She went home then, and Njal told this to his sons.

There was an old woman at Bergthorshvol called Saeunn. She was wise in many ways and could foretell the future, but she was very old and the Njalssons called her doddering because she talked so much, and yet much of it came true. One day she grabbed a stick and went around the house to a pile of chickweed. She hit the pile and cursed it for being so contemptible.

Skarphedin laughed at this and asked why she was carrying on so over the pile of chickweed.

The old woman spoke: ‘This chickweed will be taken and set afire when Njal is burned in his house, along with my foster-daughter Bergthora – put it in water,' she said, ‘or burn it, as fast as you can.'

‘We won't do that,' said Skarphedin, ‘for if this is not here something else will be found to start the fire, if that is what's fated.'

The old woman kept nagging about the chickweed pile all summer, that it should be taken inside, but it never was.

At Reykir in Skeid lived a man named Runolf Thorsteinsson. His son was named Hildiglum. On the night of the Lord's Day twelve weeks before the beginning of winter, Hildiglum went outside. He heard a great crash, and it seemed as if both earth and sky were quaking. Then he looked toward the west and thought he saw a fiery ring and a man on a grey horse inside the ring. The man passed quickly by, and was moving fast; he was carrying a flaming torch in his hand. He rode so close that Hildiglum saw him clearly. He was black as pitch and Hildiglum heard him speak this verse in a loud voice:

12
.

I ride a horse

with hoarfrost mane

and dripping forelocks,

bringing evil;

the torch ends burn,

the middle brings bane;

Flosi's plans

are like a flung torch;

Flosi's plans

are like a flung torch.

Then Hildiglum saw the man throw the torch at the mountains in the east, and such a great flame sprang up that he could no longer see the mountains. He saw the man ride east and disappear in the flames.

Hildiglum went back inside and lay down in his bed and was in a swoon for a long time and then came out of it. He remembered everything that had passed before him and told it to his father, and he asked him to tell it to Hjalti Skeggjason. Hildiglum went and told him.

Hjalti spoke: ‘You have seen a witch-ride; it always occurs before great events.'

Flosi prepared to leave the east when it was two months before winter, and he sent for all the men who had promised to go with him. Each of them had two horses and good weapons. They all came to Svinafell and were there for the night. Flosi had mass sung early on the Lord's Day; then he went to table. He told the members of his household what work each of them should do while he was away; then he went to his horses.

Flosi and his men rode west to Sand.
¹
He told his men not to ride too hard at first – they would do that at the end of the journey – and he said that they should all wait if anyone had to fall behind. They rode west to the Skogar district and arrived at Kirkjubaer, and Flosi asked all his men to go with him to church and pray; they did so.

Then they mounted their horses and rode up into the mountains and on to Fiskivotn lakes and on to the west of these, and then headed due west for Sand, with the glacier Eyjafjallajokul to their left, and then down to Godaland and from there to the Markarfljot river. At mid-afternoon on the second day they came to Thrihyrning ridge and waited there until early evening. By that time everybody had arrived except Ingjald of Keldur, and the Sigfussons condemned him strongly, but Flosi told them not to blame Ingjald while he was not there – ‘we'll settle with him later.'

Now to tell about Bergthorshvol: Grim and Helgi had left there and gone to Holar – their children were being fostered there – and had told their father that they would not be back that night. They were at Holar all day. Some poor women came there and said they had come a long way. Grim and Helgi asked them for news. They said there was none to speak of, but that they could tell of something unusual. The brothers asked what unusual thing they had to tell and told them not to hide it. They said they would tell.

‘We were coming down from Fljotshlid and saw all the Sigfussons riding, fully armed and heading up towards Thrihyrning ridge, in a group of fifteen. We also saw Grani Gunnarsson and Gunnar Lamba-son, five men altogether, and they all rode in the same direction. You might say that everything's hurrying and scurrying.'

Helgi Njalsson said, ‘Then Flosi must have come from the east, and all the others are joining up with him. Grim and I should be where Skarphedin is.'

Grim said this was so, and they set out for home.

Back at Bergthorshvol, Bergthora spoke to her household: ‘Choose your food for tonight. Each of you is to have what he likes best, for this evening is the last time that I will serve food to my household.'

‘That cannot be,' said those who were there.

‘Yet it will be so,' she said, ‘and I could tell of much more, if I wanted, and this will be a sign – Grim and Helgi will come back this
evening, before people are finished eating. If this proves true, then the rest will be as I say.'

Then she brought food to the table.

Njal spoke: ‘Strange things are happening to me. I look around the room and imagine that I see both gable-walls gone, and the table and food all covered with blood.'

This seemed a big thing to everyone except Skarphedin. He asked them not to grieve or behave in an unseemly way that people could comment on – ‘from us more than from others it's expected that we bear up well, and that's as it should be.'

Grim and Helgi came home before the tables were taken away, and everyone was much alarmed at that. Njal asked why they had returned in such a hurry, and they told what they had heard.

Njal said that no one should go to bed that night.

To return to Flosi: he said, ‘Now let's ride to Bergthorshvol and be there by nightfall'

They did this. There was a depression in the knoll at Bergthorshvol, and they rode into it and tethered their horses and stayed there until late at night.

Flosi said, ‘Now let's go up to the house and keep close together and walk slowly, and see what they do.'

Njal was standing outside with his sons and Kari and all their servants; they had arranged themselves in the yard in front of the house, almost thirty in all.

Flosi came to a halt and said, ‘Let's see what they decide to do, for I don't think that we'll ever be able to overcome them if they stay out here.'

‘Our trip will be wasted,' said Grani, ‘if we don't dare attack them.'

‘It won't come to that,' said Flosi; ‘we'll attack them even if they stay outside, but then we'll pay dearly, and not many will live to say which side won.'

Njal said to his men, ‘What do you say about the size of their force?'

‘They have a tough force,' said Skarphedin, ‘and large too, but they
have halted there because they think they will have a hard time defeating us.'

‘That's not so,' said Njal, ‘and I want everyone to go inside, for they had a hard time against Gunnar of Hlidarendi, and yet he faced them all alone. This house is solid, just as his was, and they won't be able to overcome us.'

‘That's not the way to look at it,' said Skarphedin. ‘The men who attacked Gunnar were chieftains of such integrity that they would rather have turned back than burn him in his house. But these men will attack us with fire if they can't do it in any other way, for they'll do anything to finish us off. They must realize, and it's not unlikely, that if we get away it will be their death. Besides, I'm not eager to let myself be suffocated like a fox in his hole.'

Njal spoke: ‘Now it will be as often before, my sons, that you'll over-rule me and show me no respect. When you were younger you did otherwise, and you were better off.'

Helgi spoke: ‘Let's do as our father wishes – that will be best for us.'

‘I'm not so sure about that,' said Skarphedin, ‘for he is now a doomed man. But still, I'm ready to please him by burning in the house with him, for I'm not afraid to face my death.'

He spoke to Kari: ‘Let's all stay close together, brother-in-law, so that nobody is separated from the rest.'

‘That's been my plan,' said Kari, ‘but if it's fated to be otherwise, then that's the way it will be, and there's nothing we can do about it.'

‘Avenge us,' said Skarphedin, ‘and we shall avenge you if we live through this.'

Kari said that he would. They all went inside then and took positions at the doors.

Flosi spoke: ‘Now they are doomed, for they've gone inside. Let's move quickly up to the house and form up tightly at the doors and see to it that no one gets away, neither Kari nor the Njalssons – otherwise it's death for us.'

They went up to the house and took positions all around it, in case there was a secret exit. Flosi went to the front of the house with his own men. Hroald Ozurarson ran to where Skarphedin was standing and thrust at him with his spear. Skarphedin hacked the point off his shaft and ran at him and swung his axe at him, and it came down on the shield and pushed it against him, and the forward point of the blade hit him in the face, and he fell back dead at once.