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

CHAPTER VII.

UN­NA SEP­ARATES FROM HRUT.

Now the time for the Thing was com­ing on, Un­na spoke to Sig­mund Auzur's son, and asked if he would ride to the Thing with her; he said he could not ride if his kins­man Hrut set his face against it.

“Well!” says she, “I spoke to thee be­cause I have bet­ter right to ask this from thee than from any one else.”

He an­swered, “I will make a bar­gain with thee: thou must promise to ride back west with me, and to have no un­der­hand deal­ings against Hrut or my­self”.

So she promised that, and then they rode to the Thing. Her fa­ther Mord was at the Thing, and was very glad to see her, and asked her to stay in his booth white the Thing last­ed, and she did so.

“Now,” said Mord, “what hast thou to tell me of thy mate, Hrut?”

Then she sung him a song, in which she praised Hrut's lib­er­al­ity, but said he was not mas­ter of him­self. She her­self was ashamed to speak out.

Mord was silent a short time, and then said--

“Thou hast now that on thy mind I see, daugh­ter, which thou dost not wish that any one should know save my­self, and thou wilt trust to me rather than any one else to help thee out of thy trou­ble.”

Then they went aside to talk, to a place where none could over­hear what they said; and then Mord said to his daugh­ter--

“Now tell me all that is be­tween you two, and don't make more of the mat­ter than it is worth.”

“So it shall be,” she an­swered, and sang two songs, in which she re­vealed the cause of their mis­un­der­stand­ing; and when Mord pressed her to speak out, she told him how she and Hrut could not live to­geth­er, be­cause he was spell-​bound, and that she wished to leave him.

“Thou didst right to tell me all this,” said Mord, “and now I will give thee a piece of ad­vice, which will stand thee in good stead, if thou canst car­ry it out to the let­ter. First of all, thou must ride home from the Thing, and by that time thy hus­band will have come back, and will be glad to see thee; thou must he blithe and bux­om to him, and he will think a good change has come over thee, and thou must show no signs of cold­ness or ill-​tem­per, but when spring comes thou must sham sick­ness, and take to thy bed. Hrut will not lose time in guess­ing what thy sick­ness can be, nor will he scold thee at all, but he will rather beg ev­ery one to take all the care they can of thee. Af­ter that he will set off west to the Firths, and Sig­mund with him, for he will have to flit all his goods home from the Firths west, and he will be away till the sum­mer is far spent. But when men ride to the Thing, and af­ter all have rid­den from the Dales that mean to ride thith­er, then thou must rise from thy bed and sum­mon men to go along with thee to the Thing; and when thou art all-​boun, then shalt thou go to thy bed, and the men with thee who are to bear thee com­pa­ny, and thou shalt take wit­ness be­fore thy hus­band's bed, and de­clare thy­self sep­arat­ed from him by such a law­ful sep­ara­tion as may hold good ac­cord­ing to the judg­ment of the Great Thing, and the laws of the land; and at the man's door [the main door of the house] thou shalt take the same wit­ness. Af­ter that ride away, and ride over Laxriverdale Heath, and so on over Holt­bea­con Heath; for they will look for thee by way of Hrut­firth. And so ride on till thou comest to me; then I will see af­ter the mat­ter. But in­to his hands thou shalt nev­er come more.”

Now she rides home from the Thing, and Hrut had come back be­fore her, and made her hearty wel­come. She an­swered him kind­ly, and was blithe and for­bear­ing to­wards him. So they lived hap­pi­ly to­geth­er that half-​year; but when spring came she fell sick, and kept her bed. Hrut set off west to the Firths, and bade them tend her well be­fore he went. Now, when the time for the Thing comes, she busked her­self to ride away, and did in ev­ery way as had been laid down for her; and then she rides away to the Thing. The coun­try folk looked for her, but could not find her. Mord made his daugh­ter wel­come, and asked her if she had fol­lowed his ad­vice; and she says, “I have not bro­ken one tit­tle of it”.

Then she went to the Hill of Laws, and de­clared her­self sep­arat­ed from Hrut; and men thought this strange news. Un­na went home with her fa­ther, and nev­er went west from that day for­ward.