that thou shouldst see after my household along with my mother.”
“I will not throw anything in the way of that,” says Njal; “lean
on me in this thing as much as thou likest.”
“Good go with thee for thy words,” says Gunnar, and he rides
then home.
The Easterling (3) fell again to talk with Gunnar that he should
fare abroad. Gunnar asked if he had ever sailed to other lands?
He said he had sailed to every one of them that lay between
Norway and Russia, and so, too, I have sailed to Biarmaland (4).
“Wilt thou sail with me eastward ho?” says Gunnar.
“That I will of a surety,” says he.
Then Gunnar made up his mind to sail abroad with him. Njal took
all Gunnar’s goods into his keeping.
ENDNOTES:
(1) “Oyce,” a north country word for the mouth of a river, from
the Icelandic.
(2) “The Bay” (comp. ch. ii., and other passages), the name
given to the great bay in the east of Norway, the entrance
of which from the North Sea is the Cattegat, and at the end
of which is the Christiania Firth. The name also applies to
the land round the Bay, which thus formed a district, the
boundary of which, on the one side, was the promontory
called Lindesnaes, or the Naze, and on the other, the
Gota-Elf, the river on which the Swedish town of Gottenburg
stands, and off the mouth of which lies the island of
Hisingen, mentioned shortly after.
(3) Easterling, i.e., the Norseman Hallvard.
(4) Permia, the country one comes to after doubling the North
Cape.
29. GUNNAR GOES ABROAD
So Gunnar fared abroad, and Kolskegg with him. They sailed first
to Tonsberg (1), and were there that winter. There had then been
a shift of rulers in Norway. Harold Grayfell was then dead, and
so was Gunnhillda. Earl Hacon the Bad, Sigurd’s son, Hacon’s
son, Gritgarth’s son, then ruled the realm. The mother of Hacon
was Bergliot, the daughter of Earl Thorir. Her mother was Olof
Harvest-heal. She was Harold Fair-hair’s daughter.
Hallvard asks Gunnar if he would make up his mind to go to Earl
Hacon?
“No; I will not do that,” says Gunnar. “Hast thou ever a longship?”
“I have two,” he says.
“Then I would that we two went on warfare; and let us get men to
go with us.”
“I will do that,” says Hallvard.
After that they went to the Bay, and took with them two ships,
and fitted them out thence. They had good choice of men, for
much praise was said of Gunnar.
“Whither wilt thou first fare?” says Gunnar.
“I wish to go southeast to Hisingen, to see my kinsman Oliver,”
