to their homes and tell the news.
“It must be Mord’s meaning,” says Flosi, “that ye will visit your
wives; and my guess is, that his plan is to let your houses stand
unsacked; but my plan is that not a man shall part from the
other, but all ride east with me.”
So every man took that counsel, and then they all rode east and
north of the Jokul, and so on till they came to Swinefell.
Flosi sent at once men out to get in stores, so that nothing
might fall short.
Folsi never spoke about the deed, but no fear was found in him,
and he was at home the whole winter till Yule was over.
131. NJAL’S AND BERGTHORA’S BONES FOUND
Kari bade Hjallti to go and search for Njal’s bones, “For all
will believe in what thou sayest and thinkest about them.”
Hjallti said he would be most willing to bear Njal’s bones to
church; so they rode thence fifteen men. They rode east over
Thursowater, and called on men there to come with them till they
had one hundred men, reckoning Njal’s neighbours.
They came to Bergthorsknoll at mid-day.
Hjallti asked Kari under what part of the house Njal might be
lying, but Kari showed them to the spot, and there was a great
heap of ashes to dig away. There they found the hide underneath,
and it was as though it were shrivelled with the fire. They
raised up the hide, and lo! they were unburnt under it. All
praised God for that, and thought it was a great token.
Then the boy was taken up who had lain between them, and of him a
finger was burnt off which he had stretched out from under the
hide.
Njal was home out, and so was Bergthora, and then all men went to
see their bodies.
Then Hjallti said, “What like look to you these bodies?”
They answered, “We will wait for thy utterance.”
Then Hjallti said, “I shall speak what I say with all freedom of
speech. The body of Bergthora looks as it was likely she would
look, and still fair; but Njal’s body and visage seem to me so
bright that I have never seen any dead man’s body so bright as
this.”
They all said they thought so too.
Then they sought for Skarphedinn, and the men of the household
showed them to the spot where Flosi and his men heard the song
sung, and there the roof had fallen down by the gable, and there
Hjallti said that they should look. Then they did so, and found
Skarphedinn’s body there, and he had stood up hard by the gable-wall, and his legs were burnt off him right up to the knees, but
all the rest of him was unburnt. He had bitten through his under
lip, his eyes were wide open and not swollen nor starting out of
his head; he had driven his axe into the gable-wall so hard that
it had gone in up to the middle of the blade, and that was why it
was not softened.
After that the axe was broken out of the wall, and Hjallti took
