Автор литература - Njal's Saga

should be where Skarphedinn is.”

Grim said so it ought to be, and they fared home.

That same evening Bergthora spoke to her household, and said,

“Now shall ye choose your meat to-night, so that each may have

what he likes best; for this evening is the last that I shall set

meat before my household.”

“That shall not be,” they said.

“It will be though,” she says, “and I could tell you much more

if I would, but this shall be a token, that Grim and Helgi will

be home ere men have eaten their full to-night; and if this turns

out so, then the rest that I say will happen too.”

After that she set meat on the board, and Njal said “Wondrously

now it seems to me. Methinks I see all round the room, and it

seems as though the gable wall were thrown down, but the whole

board and the meat on it is one gore of blood.”

All thought this strange but Skarphedinn, he bade men not be

downcast, nor to utter other unseemly sounds, so that men might

make a story out of them.

“For it befits us surely more than other men to bear us well, and

it is only what is looked for from us.”

Grim and Helgi came home ere the board was cleared, and men were

much struck at that. Njal asked why they had returned so quickly

but they told what they had heard.

Njal bade no man go to sleep, but to be ware of themselves.

127. THE ONSLAUGHT (1) ON BERGTHORSKNOLL

Now Flosi speaks to his men, “Now we will ride to Bergthorsknoll,

and come thither before supper-time.”

They do so. There was a dell in the knoll, and they rode

thither, and tethered their horses there, and stayed there till

the evening was far spent.

Then Flosi said, “Now we will go straight up to the house, and

keep close, and walk slow, and see what counsel they will take.”

Njal stood out of doors, and his sons, and Kari and all the

serving-men, and they stood in array to meet them in the yard,

and they were near thirty of them.

Flosi halted and said, “Now we shall see what counsel they take,

for it seems to me, if they stand out of doors to meet us, as

though we should never get the mastery over them.”

“Then is our journey bad,” says Grani Gunnar’s son, “if we are

not to dare to fall on them.”

“Nor shall that be,” says Flosi; “for we will fall on them though

they stand out of doors; but we shall pay that penalty, that many

will not go away to tell which side won the day.”

Njal said to his men, “See ye now what a great band of men they

have.”

“They have both a great and well-knit band,” says Skarphedinn;

“but this is why they make a halt now, because they think it will

be a hard struggle to master us.”

“That cannot be why they halt,” says Njal; “and my will is that

our men go indoors, for they had hard work to master Gunnar of

Lithend, though he was alone to meet them; but here is a strong

house as there was there, and they will be slow to come to close

quarters.”

“This is not to be settled in that wise,” says Skarphedinn, “for

those chiefs fell on Gunnar’s house, who were so nobleminded,

that they would rather turn back than burn him, house and all;

but these will fall on us at once with fire, if they cannot get

at us in any other way, for they will leave no stone unturned to

get the better of us; and no doubt they think, as is not

unlikely, that it will be their deaths if we escape out of their

hands. Besides, I am unwilling to let myself be stifled indoors

like a fox in his earth.”

“Now,” said Njal, “as often it happens, my sons, ye set my

counsel at naught, and show me no honour, but when ye were

younger ye did not so, and then your plans were better

furthered.”

“Let us do,” said Helgi, “as our father wills; that will be best

for us.”

“I am not so sure of that,” says Skarphedinn, “for now he is

`fey’; but still I may well humour my father in this, by being

burnt indoors along with him, for I am not afraid of my death.”

Then he said to Kari, “Let us stand by one another well, brother-in-law, so that neither parts from the other.”

“That I have made up my mind to do,” says Kari; “but if it should

be otherwise doomed, — well! then it must be as it must be, and

I shall not be able to fight against it.”

“Avenge us, and we will avenge thee,” says Skarphedinn, “if we

live after thee.”

Kari said so it should be.

Then they all went in, and stood in array at the door.

“Now are they all `fey,’” said Flosi, “since they have gone

indoors, and we will go right up to them as quickly as we can,

and throng as close as we can before the door, and give heed that

none of them, neither Kari nor Njal’s sons, get away; for that

were our bane.”

So Flosi and his men came up to the house, and set men

to watch round the house, if there were any secret doors in it.

But Flosi went up to the front of the house with his men.

Then Hroald Auzur’s son ran up to where Skarphedinn stood, and

thrust at him. Skarphedinn hewed the spearhead off the shaft as

he held it, and made another stroke at him, and the axe fell on

the top of the shield, and dashed back the whole shield on

Hroald’s body, but the upper horn of the axe caught him on the

brow, and he fell at full length on his back, and was dead at

once.

“Little chance had that one with thee, Skarphedinn,” said Kari,

“and thou art our boldest.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” says Skarphedinn, and he drew up his

lips and smiled.

Kari, and Grim, and Helgi, threw out many spears, and wounded

many men; but Flosi and his men could do nothing.

At last Flosi said, “We have already gotten great manscathe in

our men; many are wounded, and he slain whom we would choose last

of all. It is now clear that we shall never master them with

weapons; many now there be who are not so forward in fight as

they boasted, and yet they were those who goaded us on most. I

say this most to Grani Gunnar’s son, and Gunnar Lambi’s son, who

were the least willing to spare their foes. But still we shall

have to take to some other plan for ourselves, and now there are

but two choices left, and neither of them good. One is to turn

away, and that is our death; the other, to set fire to the house,

and burn them inside it; and that is a deed which we shall have

to answer for heavily before God, since we are Christian men

ourselves; but still we must take to that counsel.”

ENDNOTES:

(1) The Icelandic word is “heimsokn,” a term which still lingers

in the grave offence known in Scottish law as “hamesucken.”

128. NJAL’S BURNING

Now they took fire, and made a great pile before the doors. Then

Skarphedinn said, “What, lads! are ye lighting a fire, or are ye

taking to cooking?”

“So it shall be,” answered Grani Gunnar’s son; “and thou shalt

not need to be better done.”

“Thou repayest me,” said Skarphedinn, “as one may look for from

the man that thou art. I avenged thy father, and thou settest

most store by that duty which is farthest from thee.”

Then the women threw whey on the fire, and quenched it as fast as

they lit it. Some, too, brought water, or slops.

Then Kol Thorstein’s son said to Flosi, “A plan comes into my

mind; I have seen a loft over the hall among the crosstrees, and

we will put the fire in there, and light it with the vetchstack