The story of Burnt Njal From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga

CHAPTER XIV.

GLUM'S WED­DING.

Those broth­ers gath­ered to­geth­er a great com­pa­ny, and they were all picked men. They rode west to the dales and came to Hauskuld­st­ede, and there they found a great gath­er­ing to meet them. Hauskuld and Hrut, and their friends, filled one bench, and the bride­groom the oth­er. Hall­ger­da sat up­on the cross-​bench on the dais, and be­haved well. Thios­tolf went about with his axe raised in air, and no one seemed to know that he was there, and so the wed­ding went off well. But when the feast was over, Hall­ger­da went away south with Glum and his broth­ers. So when they came south to Var­malek, Tho­rarin asked Hall­ger­da if she would un­der­take the house­keep­ing, “No, I will not,” she said. Hall­ger­da kept her tem­per down that win­ter, and they liked her well enough. But when the spring came, the broth­ers talked about their prop­er­ty, and Tho­rarin said--“I will give up to you the house at Var­malek, for that is read­iest to your hand, and I will go down south to Lau­gar­ness and live there, but En­gey we will have both of us in com­mon”.

Glum was will­ing enough to do that. So Tho­rarin went down to the south of that dis­trict, and Glum and his wife stayed be­hind there, and lived in the house at Var­malek.

Now Hall­ger­da got a house­hold about her; she was prodi­gal in giv­ing, and grasp­ing in get­ting. In the sum­mer she gave birth to a girl. Glum asked her what name it was to have.

“She shall be called af­ter my fa­ther's moth­er, and her name shall be Thorg­er­da,” for she came down from Sig­urd Fafnir's-​bane on the fa­ther's side, ac­cord­ing to the fam­ily pedi­gree.

So the maid­en was sprin­kled with wa­ter, and had this name giv­en her, and there she grew up, and got like her moth­er in looks and fea­ture. Glum and Hall­ger­da agreed well to­geth­er, and so it went on for a while. About that time these tid­ings were heard from the north and Bearfirth, how Swan had rowed out to fish in the spring, and a great storm came down on him from the east, and how he was driv­en ashore at Fish­less, and he and his men were there lost. But the fish­er­men who were at Kalback thought they saw Swan go in­to the fell at Kalback­shorn, and that he was greet­ed well; but some spoke against that sto­ry, and said there was noth­ing in it. But this all knew that he was nev­er seen again ei­ther alive or dead. So when Hall­ger­da heard that, she thought she had a great loss in her moth­er's broth­er. Glum begged Tho­rarin to change lands with him, but he said he would not; “but,” said he, “if I out­live you, I mean to have Var­malek to my­self”. When Glum told this to Hall­ger­da, she said, “Tho­rarin has in­deed a right to ex­pect this from us”.