Hrafnkel's Saga and Other Icelandic Stories by Anonymous

Author:Anonymous
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Classics, Literary Criticism, Medieval, Fairy Tales; Folk Tales; Legends & Mythology, European, Scandinavian, Sagas, Ancient & Classical
Publisher: Penguin UK
Published: 2005-03-31T05:21:03+00:00

‘Father,’ said Thorstein, ‘Don’t say anything now that you’ll live to regret later.’

‘I’m not going to say as much as I’ve a mind to,’ said Thorarin.

Thorstein got to his feet, seized his weapons and set off. He came to the stable where Thord was grooming Bjarni’s horses, and when he saw Thord he said, ‘I’d like to know, friend Thord, whether it was accidental when you hit me in the horse-fight last summer, or deliberate. If it was deliberate, you’ll be willing to pay me compensation.’

‘If only you were double-tongued,’ said Thord, ‘then you could easily speak with two voices and call the blow accidental with one and deliberate with the other. That’s all the compensation you’re getting from me.’

‘In that case don’t expect me to make this claim a second time,’ said Thorstein.

With that he rushed at Thord and dealt him his deathblow. Then he went up to the house at Hof where he saw a woman standing outside the door. ‘Tell Bjarni that a bull has gored Thord, his horse-boy,’ he said to her, ‘and also that Thord will be waiting for him at the stable.’

‘Go back home, man,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell Bjarni in my own good time.’

Thorstein went back home, and the woman carried on with her work.

After Bjarni had got up that morning and was sitting at table, he asked where Thord could be, and was told he had gone to see to the horses.

‘I’d have thought he’d be back by now, unless something has happened to him,’ said Bjarni.

The woman Thorstein had spoken to broke in. ‘It’s true what we women are often told, we’re not very clever. Thorstein the Staff-Struck came here this morning and he said Thord had been gored by a bull and couldn’t look after himself. I didn’t want to wake you, and then I forgot all about it.’

Bjarni left the table, went over to the stable and found Thord lying there, dead. Bjarni had him buried, then brought a court action against Thorstein and had him sentenced to outlawry for manslaughter. But Thorstein stayed on at Sunnudale and worked for his father, and Bjarni did nothing more about it.

One day in the autumn when the men of Hof were busy singeing sheep’s heads3, Bjarni lay down on top of the kitchen wall to listen to their talk. Now the brothers Thorhall and Thorvald started gossiping; ‘It never occurred to us when we came to live here with Killer-Bjarni4 that we’d be singeing lambs’ heads while his outlaw Thorstein is singeing the heads of wethers. It would have been better for Bjarni to have been more lenient with his kinsmen at Bodvarsdale and not to let his outlaw at Sunnudale act just like his own equal. But “A wounded coward lies low”, and it’s not likely that he’ll ever wipe away this stain on his honour.’

One of the men said, ‘Those words were better left unsaid, the trolls must have twisted your tongue. I think Bjarni simply isn’t prepared to

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