After that they had no more mistrust.
Kari ran till he came to a stream, and then he threw himself down
into it, and so quenched the fire on him.
After that he ran along under shelter of the smoke into a hollow,
and rested him there, and that has since been called Kari’s
Hollow.
129. SKARPHEDINN’S DEATH
Now it is to be told of Skarphedinn that he runs out on the
crossbeam straight after Kari, but when he came to where the
beam was most burnt, then it broke down under him. Skarphedinn
came down on his feet, and tried again the second time, and
climbs up the wall with a run, then down on him came the wall-plate, and he toppled down again inside.
Then Skarphedinn said, “Now one can see what will come;” and then
he went along the side wall. Gunnar Lambi’s son leapt up on the
wall and sees Skarphedinn, he spoke thus, “Weepest thou now,
Skarphedinn?”
“Not so,” says Skarphedinn; “but true it is that the smoke makes
one’s eyes smart, but is it as it seems to me, dost thou laugh?”
“So it is surely,” says Gunnar, “and I have never laughed since
thou slewest Thrain on Markfleet.”
Then Skarphedinn said, “Here now is a keepsake for thee;” and
with that he took out of his purse the jaw-tooth which he had
hewn out of Thrain, and threw it at Gunnar, and struck him in the
eye, so that it started out and lay on his cheek.
Then Gunnar fell down from the roof.
Skarphedinn then went to his brother Grim, and they held one
another by the hand and trode the fire; but when they came to the
middle of the hall Grim fell down dead.
Then Skarphedinn went to the end of the house, and then there was
a great crash, and down fell the roof. Skarphedinn was then shut
in between it and the gable, and so he could not stir a step
thence.
Flosi and his band stayed by the fire until it was broad
daylight; then came a man riding up to them. Flosi asked him for
his name, but he said his name was Geirmund, and that he was a
kinsman of the sons of Sigfus.
“Ye have done a mighty deed,” he says.
“Men,” said Flosi, “will call it both a mighty deed and an ill
deed, but that can’t be helped now.”
“How many men have lost their lives here?” asks Geirmund.
“Here have died,” says Flosi, “Njal and Bergthora and all their
sons, Thord Kari’s son, Kari Solmund’s son, but besides these we
cannot say for a surety, because we know not their names.”
“Thou tellest him now dead,” said Geirmund, “with whom we have
gossiped this morning.”
“Who is that?” says Flosi.
“We two,” says Geirmund, “I and my neighbour Bard, met Kari
Solmund’s son, and Bard gave him his horse, and his hair and his
upper clothes were burned off him!”
“Had he any weapons?” asks Flosi.
