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

CHAPTER XXI.

UN­NA GOES TO SEE GUN­NAR.

Now it must be told how Un­na had lost all her ready mon­ey. She made her way to Lithend, and Gun­nar greet­ed his kinswom­an well. She stayed there that night, and the next morn­ing they sat out of doors and talked. The end of their talk was that she told him how heav­ily she was pressed for mon­ey.

“This is a bad busi­ness,” he said.

“What help wilt thou give me out of my dis­tress?” she asked.

He an­swered--“Take as much mon­ey as thou needest from what I have out at in­ter­est”.

“Nay,” she said, “I will not waste thy goods.”

“What then dost thou wish?”

“I wish thee to get back my goods out of Hrut's hands,” she an­swered.

“That, me­thinks, is not like­ly,” said he, “when thy fa­ther could not get them back, and yet he was a great lawyer, but I know lit­tle about law.”

She an­swered--“Hrut pushed that mat­ter through rather by bold­ness than by law; be­sides, my fa­ther was old, and that was why men thought it bet­ter not to drive things to the ut­ter­most. And now there is none of my kins­men to take this suit up if thou hast not dar­ing enough.”

“I have courage enough,” he replied, “to get these goods back; but I do not know how to take the suit up.”

“Well!” she an­swered, “go and see Njal of Bergth­orsknoll, he will know how to give thee ad­vice. Be­sides, he is a great friend of thine.”

“'Tis like enough he will give me good ad­vice, as he gives it to ev­ery one else,” says Gun­nar.

So the end of their talk was, that Gun­nar un­der­took her cause, and gave her the mon­ey she need­ed for her house­keep­ing, and af­ter that she went home.

Now Gun­nar rides to see Njal, and he made him wel­come, and they be­gan to talk at once.

Then Gun­nar said--“I am come to seek a bit of good ad­vice from thee”.

Njal replied--“Many of my friends are wor­thy of this, but still I think I would take more pains for none than for thee”.

Gun­nar said--“I wish to let thee know that I have un­der­tak­en to get Un­na's goods back from Hrut”.

“A very hard suit to un­der­take,” said Njal, “and one very haz­ardous how it will go; but still I will get it up for thee in the way I think like­li­est to suc­ceed, and the end will be good if thou break­est none of the rules I lay down; if thou dost, thy life is in dan­ger.”

“Nev­er fear; I will break none of them,” said Gun­nar.

Then Njal held his peace for a lit­tle while, and af­ter that he spoke as fol­lows:--