Автор литература - Njal's Saga

shows his front teeth, and has his axe aloft on his shoulder.”

“My name is Hedinn,” he says, “but some men call me Skarphedinn

by my full name; but what more hast thou to say to me.”

“This,” said Snorri the Priest, “that methinks thou art a well-knit, ready-handed man, but yet I guess that the best part of thy

good fortune is past, and I ween thou hast now not long to live.”

“That is well,” says Skarphedinn, “for that is a debt we all have

to pay, but still it were more needful to avenge thy father than

to foretell my fate in this way.”

“Many have said that before,” says Snorri, “and I will not be

angry at such words.”

After that they went out, and got no help there. Then they fared

to the booths of the men of Skagafirth. There Hafr (1) the

Wealthy had his booth. The mother of Hafr was named Thoruna, she

was a daughter of Asbjorn Baldpate of Myrka, the son of

Hrosbjorn.

Asgrim and his band went into the booth, and Hafr sate in the

midst of it, and was talking to a man.

Asgrim went up to him, and bailed him well; he took it kindly,

and bade him sit down.

“This I would ask of thee,” said Asgrim, “that thou wouldst

grant me and my sons-in-law help.

Hafr answered sharp and quick, and said he would have nothing to

do with their troubles.

“But still I must ask who that pale-faced man is before whom

four men go, so ill-looking, as though he had come out of the

sea-crags.”

“Never mind, milksop that thou art!” said Skarphedinn, “who I

am, for I will dare to go forward wherever thou standest before

me, and little would I fear though such striplings were in my

path. ‘Twere rather thy duty, too, to get back thy sister

Swanlauga, whom Eydis Ironsword and his messmate Stediakoll took

away out of thy house, but thou didst not dare to do aught

against them.”

“Let us go out,” said Asgrim, “there is no hope of help here.”

Then they went out to the booths of men of Modruvale, and asked

whether Gudmund the Powerful were in the booth, but they were

told he was.

Then they went into the booth. There was a high seat in the

midst of it, and there sate Gudmund the Powerful.

Asgrim went and stood before him, and hailed him.

Gudmund took his greeting well, and asked him to sit down.

“I will not sit,” said Asgrim, “but I wish to pray thee for help,

for thou art a bold man and a mighty chief.”

“I will not be against thee,” said Gudmund, “but if I see fit to

yield thee help, we may well talk of that afterwards,” and so he

treated them well and kindly in every way.

Asgrim thanked him for his words, and Gudmund said, “There is one

man in your band at whom I have gazed for a while, and he seems

to me more terrible than most men that I have seen.”

“Which is he?” says Asgrim.

“Four go before him,” says Gudmund; “dark brown is his hair, and

pale is his face; tall of growth and sturdy. So quick and shifty

in his manliness that I would rather have his following than that

of ten other men; but yet the man is unlucky-looking.”

“I know,” said Skarphedinn, “that thou speakest at me, but it

does not go in the same way as to luck with me and thee. I have

blame, indeed, from the slaying of Hauskuld, the Whiteness

Priest, as is fair and right; but both Thorkel Foulmouth and

Thorir Helgi’s son spread abroad bad stories about thee, and that

has tried thy temper very much.”

Then they went out, and Skarphedinn said, “Whither shall we go

now?”

“To the booths of the men of Lightwater,” said Asgrim.

There Thorkel Foulmouth (2) had set up his booth.

Thorkel Foulmouth had been abroad and worked his way to fame in

other lands. He had slain a robber east in Jemtland’s wood, and

then he fared on east into Sweden, and was a messmate of Saurkvir

the Churl, and they harried eastward ho; but to the east of

Baltic side (3) Thorkel had to fetch water for them one evening;

then he met a wild man of the woods (4), and struggled against

him long; but the end of it was that he slew the wild man.

Thence he fared east into Adalsyssla, and there he slew a flying

fire-drake. After that he fared back to Sweden, and thence to

Norway, and so out to Iceland, and let these deeds of derring do

be carved over his shut bed, and on the stool before his high

seat. He fought, too, on Lightwater way with his brothers

against Gudmund the Powerful, and the men of Lightwater won the

day. He and Thorir Helgi’s son spread abroad bad stories about

Gudmund. Thorkel said there was no man in Iceland with whom he

would not fight in single combat, or yield an inch to, if need

were. He was called Thorkel Foulmouth, because he spared no one

with whom he had to do either in word or deed.

ENDNOTES:

(1) Hafr was the son of Thorkel, the son of Eric of Gooddale,

the son of Geirmund, the son of Hroald, the son of Eric

Frizzlebeard who felled Gritgarth in Soknardale in Norway.

(2) Thorkel was the son of Thorgeir the Priest, the son of

Tjorfi, the son of Thorkel the Long; but the mother of

Thorgeir was Thoruna, the daughter of Thorstein, the son of

Sigmund, son of Bard of the Nip. The mother of Thorkel

Foulmouth was named Gudrida; she was a daughter of Thorkel

the B1ack of Hleidrargarth, the son of Thorir Tag, the son

of Kettle the Seal, the son of Ornolf, the son of Bjornolf,

the son of Grim Hairycheek, the son of Kettle Haeing, the

son of Hallbjorn Halftroll.

(3) “Baltic side.” This probably means a part of the Finnish

coast in the Gulf of Bothnia. See “Fornm. Sogur”, xii.

264-5.

(4) “Wild man of the woods.” In the original Finngalkn, a

fabulous monster, half man and half beast.

119. OF SKARPHEDINN AND THORKEL FOULMOUTH

Asgrim and his fellows went to Thorkel Foulmouth’s booth, and

Asgrim said then to his companions, “This booth Thorkel Foulmouth

owns, a great champion, and it were worth much to us to get

his-help. We must here take heed in everything, for he is self-willed and bad tempered; and now I will beg thee, Skarphedinn,

not to let thyself be led into our talk.”

Skarphedinn smiled at that. He was so clad, he had on a blue

kirtle and grey breeks, and black shoes on his feet, coming high

up his leg; he had a silver belt about him, and that same axe in

his hand with which he slew Thrain, and which he called the

“ogress of war,” a round buckler, and a silken band round his

brow, and his hair brushed back behind his ears. He was the most

soldierlike of men, and by that all men knew him. He went in

his appointed place, and neither before nor behind.

Now they went into the booth and into its inner chamber. Thorkel

sate in the middle of the crossbench, and his men away from him

on all sides. Asgrim hailed him, and Thorkel took the greeting

well, and Asgrim said to him, “For this have we come hither, to

ask help of thee, and that thou wouldst come to the Court with

us.”

“What need can ye have of my help,” said Thorkel, “when ye have

already gone to Gudmund; he must surely have promised thee his

help?”

“We could not get his help,” says Asgrim.

“Then Gudmund thought the suit likely to make him foes,” said

Thorkel; “and so no doubt it will be, for such deeds are the

worst that have ever been done; nor do I know what can have

driven you to come hither to me, and to think that I should be