Have charge of the slain.
“Now new-coming nations
That island shall rule,
Who on outlying headlands
Abode ere the fight;
I say that King mighty
To death now is done,
Now low before spearpoint
That Earl bows his head.
“Soon over all Ersemen
Sharp sorrow shall fall,
That woe to those warriors
Shall wane nevermore;
Our woof now is woven.
Now battlefield waste,
O’er land and o’er water
War tidings shall leap.
“Now surely ‘tis gruesome
To gaze all around.
When bloodred through heaven
Drives cloudrack o’er head;
Air soon shall be deep hued
With dying men’s blood
When this our spaedom
Comes speedy to pass.
“So cheerily chant we
Charms for the young king,
Come maidens lift loudly
His warwinning lay;
Let him who now listens
Learn well with his ears
And gladden brave swordsmen
With bursts of war’s song.
“Now mount we our horses,
Now bare we our brands,
Now haste we hard, maidens,
Hence far, far, away.”
Then they plucked down the Woof and tore it asunder, and each
kept what she had hold of.
Now Daurrud goes away from the Slit, and home; but they got on
their steeds and rode six to the south, and the other six to the
north.
A like event befell Brand Gneisti’s son in the Faroe Isles.
At Swinefell, in Iceland, blood came on the priest’s stole on
Good-Friday, so that he had to put it off.
At Thvattwater the priest thought he saw on Good-Friday a long
deep of the sea hard by the altar, and there he saw many awful
sights, and it was long ere he could sing the prayers.
This event happened in the Orkneys, that Hareck thought he saw
