Anonymous - The story of Burnt Njal

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Wind we, wind swiftly
Our warwinning woof.
Woof erst for king youthful
Foredoomed as his own,
Forth now we will ride,
Then through the ranks rushing
Be busy where friends
Blows blithe give and take.

Wind we, wind swiftly
Our warwinning woof,
After that let us steadfastly
Stand by the brave king;
Then men shall mark mournful
Their shields red with gore,
How Swordstroke and Spearthrust
Stood stout by the prince.

Wind we, wind swiftly
Our warwinning woof;
When sword-bearing rovers
To banners rush on,
Mind, maidens, we spare not
One life in the fray!
We corse-choosing sisters
Have charge of the slain.

Now new-coming nations
That island shall rule.
Who on outlying headlands
Abode ere the fight;
I say that King mighty
To death now is done,
Now low before spearpoint
That Earl bows his head.

Soon over all Ersemen
Sharp sorrow shall fall,
That woe to those warriors
Shall wane nevermore;
Our woof now is woven.
Now battle-field waste,
O'er land and o'er water
War tidings shall leap.

Now surely 'tis gruesome
To gaze all around,
When bloodred through heaven
Drives cloudrack o'er head;
Air soon shall be deep hued
With dying men's blood
When this our spaedom
Comes speedy to pass.

So cheerily chant we
Charms for the young king,
Come maidens lift loudly
His warwinning lay;
Let him who now listens
Learn well with his ears,
And gladden brave swordsmen
With bursts of war's song.

Now mount we our horses,
Now bare we our brands,
Now haste we hard, maidens,
Hence far, far away.

Then they plucked down the woof and tore it asunder, and each kept what
she had hold of.

Now Daurrud goes away from the slit, and home; but they got on their
steeds and rode six to the south, and the other six to the north.

A like event befell Brand Gneisti's son in the Faroe Isles.

At Swinefell, in Iceland, blood came on the priest's stole on Good
Friday, so that he had to put it off.

At Thvattwater the priest thought he saw on Good Friday a long deep of
the sea hard by the altar, and there he saw many awful sights, and it
was long ere he could sing the prayers.

This event happened in the Orkneys, that Hareck thought he saw Earl
Sigurd, and some men with him. Then Hareck took his horse and rode to
meet the Earl. Men saw that they met and rode under a brae, but they
were never seen again, and not a scrap was ever found of Hareck.

Earl Gilli in the Southern Isles dreamed that a man came to him and
said his name was Hostfinn, and told him he was come from Ireland.

The Earl thought he asked him for tidings thence, and then he sang this
song--

I have been where warriors wrestled,
High in Erin sang the sword,
Boss to boss met many bucklers.
Steel rung sharp on rattling helm;
I can tell of all their struggle;
Sigurd fell in flight of spears;
Brian fell, but kept his kingdom
Ere he lost one drop of blood.

Those two, Flosi and the Earl, talked much of this dream. A week after,
Hrafn the red came thither, and told them all the tidings of Brian's
battle, the fall of the king, and of Earl Sigurd, and Brodir, and all
the Vikings.

"What," said Flosi, "hast thou to tell me of my men?"

"They all fell there," says Hrafn, "but thy brother-in-law Thorstein
took peace from Kerthialfad, and is now with him."

Flosi told the Earl that he would now go away, "for we have our
pilgrimage south to fulfil".

The Earl bade him go as he wished, and gave him a ship and all else that
he needed, and much silver.

Then they sailed to Wales, and stayed there a while.

CHAPTER CLVII.

THE SLAYING OF KOL THORSTEIN'S SON.

Kari Solmund's son told master Skeggi that he wished he would get him a
ship. So master Skeggi gave Kari a long-ship, fully trimmed and manned,
and on board it went Kari, and David the white, and Kolbein the black.

Now Kari and his fellows sailed south through Scotland's Firths, and
there they found men from the Southern Isles. They told Kari the tidings
from Ireland, and also that Flosi was gone to Wales, and his men with
him.

But when Kari heard that, he told his messmates that he would hold on
south to Wales, to fall in with Flosi and his band. So he bade them then
to part from his company, if they liked it better, and said that he
would not wish to beguile any man into mischief, because he thought he
had not yet had revenge enough on Flosi and his band.

All chose to go with him; and then he sails south to Wales, and there
they lay in hiding in a creek out of the way.

That morning Kol Thorstein's son went into the town to buy silver. He of
all the Burners had used the bitterest words. Kol had talked much with a
mighty dame, and he had so knocked the nail on the head, that it was all
but fixed that he was to have her, and settle down there.

That same morning Kari went also into the town. He came where Kol was
telling the silver.

Kari knew him at once, and ran at him with his drawn sword and smote him
on the neck; but he still went on telling the silver, and his head
counted "ten" just as it spun off the body.

Then Kari said--

"Go and tell this to Flosi, that Kari Solmund's son hath slain Kol
Thorstein's son. I give notice of this slaying as done by my hand."

Then Kari went to his ship, and told his shipmates of the manslaughter.

Then they sailed north to Beruwick, and laid up their ship, and fared up
into Whitherne in Scotland, and were with Earl Malcolm that year.

But when Flosi heard of Kol's slaying, he laid out his body, and
bestowed much money on his burial.

Flosi never uttered any wrathful words against Kari.

Thence Flosi fared south across the sea and began his pilgrimage, and
went on south, and did not stop till he came to Rome. There he got so
great honour that he took absolution from the Pope himself, and for that
he gave a great sum of money.

Then he fared back again by the east road, and stayed long in towns, and
went in before mighty men, and had from them great honour.

He was in Norway the winter after, and was with Earl Eric till he was
ready to sail, and the Earl gave him much meal, and many other men
behaved handsomely to him.

Now he sailed out to Iceland, and ran into Hornfirth, and thence fared
home to Swinefell. He had then fulfilled all the terms of his atonement,
both in fines and foreign travel.

CHAPTER CLVIII.

OF FLOSI AND KARI.

Now it is to be told of Kari that the summer after he went down to his
ship and sailed south across the sea, and began his pilgrimage in
Normandy, and so went south and got absolution and fared back by the
western way, and took his ship again in Normandy, and sailed in her
north across the sea to Dover in England.

Thence he sailed west, round Wales, and so north, through Scotland's
Firths, and did not stay his course till he came to Thraswick in
Caithness, to master Skeggi's house.

There he gave over the ship of burden to Kolbein and David, and Kolbein
sailed in that ship to Norway, but David stayed behind in the Fair Isle.

Kari was that winter in Caithness. In this winter his housewife died out
in Iceland.

The next summer Kari busked him for Iceland. Skeggi gave him a ship of
burden, and there were eighteen of them on board her.

They were rather late "boun," but still they put to sea, and had a long
passage, but at last they made Ingolf's Head. There their shin was
dashed all to pieces, but the men's lives were saved. Then, too, a gale
of wind came on them.

Now they ask Kari what counsel was to be taken; but he said their best
plan was to go to Swinefell and put Flosi's manhood to the proof.

So they went right up to Swinefell in the storm. Flosi was in the hall.
He knew Kari as soon as ever he came into the hall, and sprang up to
meet him, and kissed him, and sate him down in the high-seat by his
side.

Flosi asked Kari to be there that winter, and Kari took his offer. Then
they were atoned with a full atonement.

Then Flosi gave away his brother's daughter Hildigunna, whom Hauskuld
the priest of Whiteness had had to wife, to Kari, and they dwelt first
of all at Broadwater.

Men say that the end of Flosi's life was, that he fared abroad, when he
had grown old, to seek for timber to build him a hall; and he was in
Norway that winter, but the next summer he was late "boun"; and men told
him that his ship was not seaworthy.

Flosi said she was quite good enough for an old and death-doomed man,
and bore his goods on shipboard and put out to sea. But of that ship no
tidings were ever heard.

These were the children of Kari Solmund's son and Helga Njal's
daughter--Thorgerda and Ragneida, Valgerda, and Thord who was burnt in
Njal's house. But the children of Hildigunna and Kari were these,
Starkad, and Thord, and Flosi.

The son of Burning-Flosi was Kolbein, who has been the most famous man
of any of that stock.

And here we end the STORY of BURNT NJAL.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Guethbrandr Vigfusson.]

[Footnote 2: This word is invented like Laxdaela, Gretla, and others, to
escape the repetition or the word Saga, after that of the person or
place to which the story belongs. It combines the idea of the subject
and the telling in one word.]

[Footnote 3: Many particulars mentioned in the Saga as wonderful are no
wonders to us. Thus in the case of Gunnar's bill, when we are told that
it gave out a strange sound before great events, this probably only
means that the shaft on which it was mounted was of some hard ringing
wood unknown in the north. It was a foreign weapon, and if the shaft
were of lance wood, the sounds it gave out when brandished or shaken
would be accounted for at once without a miracle.]

[Footnote 4: There can be no doubt that it was considered a grave
offence to public morality to tell a Saga untruthfully. Respect to
friends and enemies alike, when they were dead and gone, demanded that
the histories of their lives, and especially of their last moments,
should be told as the events had actually happened. Our own Saga affords
a good illustration of this, and shows at the same time how a Saga
naturally arose out of great events. When King Sigtrygg was Earl
Sigurd's guest at Yule, and Flosi and the other Burners were about the
Earl's court, the Irish king wished to hear the story of the Burning,
and Gunnar Lambi's son was put forward to tell it at the feast on
Christmas day. It only added to Kari's grudge against him to hear Gunnar
tell the story with such a false leaning, when he gave it out that
Skarphedinn had wept for fear of the fire, and the vengeance which so
speedily overtook the false teller was looked upon as just retribution.
But when Flosi took up the story, he told it fairly and justly for both
sides, "and therefore," says the Saga, "what he said was believed".]

[Footnote 5: Oeresound, the gut between Denmark and Sweden, at the
entrance of the Baltic, commonly called in English, The Sound.]

[Footnote 6: That is, he came from what we call the Western Isles or
Hebrides. The old appellation still lingers in "Sodor (i.e. the South
isles) and Man".]

[Footnote 7: This means that Njal was one of those gifted beings who,
according to the firm belief of that age, had a more than human insight
into things about to happen. It answers very nearly to the Scottish
"second sight".]

[Footnote 8: Lord of rings, a periphrasis for a chief, that is, Mord.]

[Footnote 9: Earth's offspring, a periphrasis for woman, that is, Unna.]

[Footnote 10: "Oyce," a north country word for the mouth of a river,
from the Icelandic _os_]

[Footnote 11: "The Bay," the name given to the great bay in the east of
Norway, the entrance of which from the North Sea is the Cattegat, and at
the end of which is the Christiania Firth. The name also applies to the
land round the Bay, which thus formed a district, the boundary of which,
on the one side, was the promontory called Lindesnaes, or the Naze, and
on the other, the Goeta-Elf, the river on which the Swedish town of
Gottenburg stands, and off the mouth of which lies the island of
Hisingen, mentioned shortly after.]

[Footnote 12: Permia, the country one comes to after doubling the North
Cape.]

[Footnote 13: A town at the mouth of the Christiania Firth. It was a
great place for traffic in early times, and was long the only mart in
the south-east of Norway.]

[Footnote 14: Rill of wolf--stream of blood.]

[Footnote 15: A province of Sweden.]

[Footnote 16: An island in the Baltic, off the coast of Esthonia.]

[Footnote 17: Endil's courser--periphrasis for a ship.]

[Footnote 18: Sigar's storm--periphrasis for a sea-fight.]

[Footnote 19: Grieve, i.e., bailiff, head workman.]

[Footnote 20: Swanbath's beams, periphrasis for gold.]

[Footnote 21: "Thou, that heapest hoards," etc.--merely a periphrasis
for man, and scarcely fitting, except in irony, to a splitter of
firewood.]

[Footnote 22: That is, slew him in a duel.]

[Footnote 23: This shows that the shields were oblong, running down to a
point.]

[Footnote 24: "Ocean's fire," a periphrasis for "gold". The whole line
is a periphrasis for "bountiful chief".]

[Footnote 25: "Rhine's fire," a periphrasis for gold.]

[Footnote 26: "Water-skates," a periphrasis for ships.]

[Footnote 27: "Great Rift," Almannagja--The great volcanic rift, or
"geo," as it would be called in Orkney and Shetland, which bounds the
plain of the Althing on one side.]

[Footnote 28: Thorgrim Easterling and Thorbrand.]

[Footnote 29: "Frodi's flour," a periphrasis for gold.]

[Footnote 30: "Sea's bright sunbeams," a periphrasis for gold.]

[Footnote 31: Constantinople.]

[Footnote 32: Hlada or Lada, and sometimes in the plural Ladir, was the
old capital of Drontheim, before Nidaios--the present Drontheim--was
founded. Drontheim was originally the name of the country round the
firth of the same name, and is not used in the old Sagas for a town.]

[Footnote 33: The country round the Christiania Firth, at the top of the
"Bay".]

[Footnote 34: A town in Sweden on the Goeta-Elf.]

[Footnote 35: The mainland of Orkney, now Pomona.]

[Footnote 36: Now Stroma, in the Pentland Firth.]

[Footnote 37: By so doing Hrapp would have cleared himself of his own
outlawry.]

[Footnote 38: "Prop of sea-waves' fire," a periphrasis for a woman that
bears gold on her arm.]

[Footnote 39: "Skates that skim," etc., a periphrasis for ships.]

[Footnote 40: "Odin's mocking cup," mocking songs.]

[Footnote 41: An allusion to the Beast Epic, where the cunning fox
laughs at the flayed condition of his stupid foes, the wolf and bear. We
should say, "Don't stop to speak with him, but rather beat him black and
blue".]

[Footnote 42: "Sea-stag," periphrasis for ship.]

[Footnote 43: "Sea-fire bearers," the bearers of gold, men, that is,
Helgi and Grim.]

[Footnote 44: "Byrnie-breacher," piercer of coats of mail.]

[Footnote 45: "Noisy ogre's namesake," an allusion to the name of
Skarphedinn's axe, "the ogress of war".]

[Footnote 46: Rood-cross, a crucifix.]

[Footnote 47: His son was Glum who fared to the burning with Flosi.]

[Footnote 48: "Forge which foams with song," the poet's head, in which
songs are forged, and gush forth like foaming mead.]

[Footnote 49: "Hero's helm-prop," the hero's, man's, head which supports
his helm.]

[Footnote 50: It is needless to say that this Hall was not Hall of the
Side.]

[Footnote 51: "Wolf of Gods," the "_caput lupinum_," the outlaw of
heaven, the outcast from Valhalla, Thangbrand.]

[Footnote 52: "The other wolf," Gudleif.]

[Footnote 53: "Swarthy skarf," the skarf, or _pelecanus cardo_, the
cormorant. He compares the message of Thorwald to the cormorant shimming
over the waves, and says he will never take it. "Snap at flies," a very
common Icelandic metaphor from fish rising to a fly.]

[Footnote 54: Maurer thinks the allusion is here to some mythological
legend on Odin's adventures which has not come dawn to us.]

[Footnote 55: "He that giant's," etc., Thor.]

[Footnote 56: "Mew-field's bison," the sea-going ship, which sails over
he plain of the sea-mew.]

[Footnote 57: "Bell's warder," the Christian priest whose bell-ringing
formed part of the rites of the new faith.]

[Footnote 58: "Falcon of the strand," ship.]

[Footnote 59: "Courser of the causeway," ship.]

[Footnote 60: "Gylfi's hart," ship.]

[Footnote 61: "Viking's snow-shoe," sea-king's ship.]

[Footnote 62: "Boiling Kettle," This was a hver, or hot spring.]

[Footnote 63: This was the "Raven's Rift," opposite to the "Great Rift"
on the other side of the Thingfield.]

[Footnote 64: "Warrior's temper," the temper of Hauskuld of Whiteness.]

[Footnote 65: "Snake-land's stem," a periphrasis for woman, Rodny.]

[Footnote 66: "He that hoardeth ocean's fire," a periphrasis for man,
Hauskuld of Whiteness.]

[Footnote 67: "Baltic side." This probably means a part of the Finnish
coast in the Gulf of Bothnia.]

[Footnote 68: "Wild man of the woods." In the original Finngalkn, a
fabulous monster, half man and half beast.]

[Footnote 69: "Sand," Skeidara sand.]

[Footnote 70: "Sand," Maelifell's sand.]

[Footnote 71: "Nones," the well-known canonical hour of the day, the
ninth hour from six A.M., that is, about three o'clock P.M., when one of
the church services took place.]

[Footnote 72: "Son of Gollnir," Njal, who was the son of Thorgeir
Gelling or Gollnir.]

[Footnote 73: "My friends," ironically of course.]

[Footnote 74: "Helmet-hewer," sword.]

[Footnote 75: John for a man, and Gudruna for a woman, were standing
names in the Formularies of the Icelandic code, answering to the "M or
N" in our Liturgy, or to those famous fictions of English Law. "John Doe
and Richard Roe".]

[Footnote 76: "Gossipry," that is, because they were gossips, _God's
sib_, relations by baptism.]

[Footnote 77: "Swinestye," ironically for Swinefell, where Flosi lived.]

[Footnote 78: This is the English equivalent for the Icelandic Hrepp, a
district. It still lingers in "the Rape of Bramber," and other districts
in Sussex and the south-east.]

[Footnote 79: "With words alone," The English proverb, "Threatened men
live long".]

[Footnote 80: "Sea crags." Hence Thorgeir got his surname "Craggeir".]

[Footnote 81: "Pilgrimage to Rome." This condition had not been
mentioned before.]

[Footnote 82: "Shieldburg" that is, a ring of men holding their shields
locked together.]

[Footnote 83: "Thy dog," etc. Meaning that he would go a third time on a
pilgrimage to Rome If St. Peter helped him out of this strait.]

[Footnote 84: "Helmgnawer," the sword that bites helmets.]

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