“Very little good wilt thou let me reap of my son-in-lawship,”
says Hrapp, “but thou hast not so many men at thy back as to do
that speedily.”
Up they rose, but he sprang out of doors. They run after him,
but he got away to the wood, and they could not lay hold of him.
Then Gudbrand gathers people, and lets the wood be searched; but
they find him not, for the wood was great and thick.
Hrapp fares through the wood till he came to a clearing; there he
found a house, and saw a man outside cleaving wood.
He asked that man for his name, and he said his name was Tofi.
Tofi asked him for his name in turn, and Hrapp told him his true
name.
Hrapp asked why the householder had set up his abode so far from
other men?
“For that here,” he says, “I think I am less likely to have
brawls with other men.”
“It is strange how we beat about the bush in our talk,” says
Hrapp, “but I will first tell thee who I am. I have been with
Gudbrand of the Dale, but I ran away thence because I slew his
overseer; but now I know that we are both of us bad men; for thou
wouldst not have come hither away from other men unless thou wert
some man’s outlaw. And now I give thee two choices, either that
I will tell where thou art, or that we two have between us, share
and share alike, all that is here.”
“This is even as thou savest,” said the householder; “I seized
and carried off this woman who is here with me, and many men have
sought for me.”
Then he led Hrapp in with him; there was a small house there, but
well built.
The master of the house told his mistress that he had taken Hrapp
into his company.
“Most men will get ill luck from this man,” she says; “but thou
wilt have thy way.”
So Hrapp was there after that. He was a great wanderer, and was
never at home. He still brings about meetings with Gudruna; her
father and brother, Thrand and Gudbrand, lay in wait for him, but
they could never get nigh him, and so all that year passed away.
Gudbrand sent and told Earl Hacon what trouble he had had with
Hrapp, and the earl let him be made an outlaw, and laid a price
upon his head. He said, too, that he would go himself to look
after him; but that passed off, and the earl thought it easy
enough for them to catch him when he went about so unwarily.
87. THRAIN TOOK TO HRAPP
That same summer Njal’s sons fared to Norway from the Orkneys, as
was before written, and they were there at the fair during the
summer. Then Thrain Sigfus’ son busked his ship for Iceland, and
was all but “boun.” At that time Earl Hacon went to a feast at
Gudbrand’s house. That night Killing-Hrapp came to the shrine of
Earl Hacon and Gudbrand, and he went inside the house, and there
he saw Thorgerda Shrinebride sitting, and she was as tall as a
