minds more alike.”
Gunnar scolded him a long time, and he answered him well, and
said he would follow his counsel more for the time to come than
he had followed it hitherto. Gunnar told him then they might get
on together. Gunnar and Njal kept up their friendship though the
rest of their people saw little of one another. It happened once
that some gangrel women came to Lithend from Bergthorsknoll; they
were great gossips and rather spiteful tongued. Hallgerda had a
bower, and sate often in it, and there sate with her her daughter
Thorgerda, and there too were Thrain and Sigmund, and a crowd of
women. Gunnar was not there, nor Kolskegg. These gangrel women
went into the bower, and Hallgerda greeted them, and made room
for them; then she asked them for news, but they had none to
tell. Hallgerda asked where they had been overnight; they said
at Bergthorsknoll.
“What was Njal doing?” she says.
“He was hard at work sitting still,” they said.
“What were Njal’s sons doing?” she says; “they think themselves
men at any rate.”
“Tall men they are in growth,” they say, “but as yet they are all
untried; Skarphedinn whetted an axe, Gim fitted a spearhead to
the shaft, Helgi riveted a hilt on a sword, Hauskuld strengthened
the handle of a shield.”
“They must be bent on some great deed,” says Hallgerda.
“We do not know that,” they say.
“What were Njal’s housecarles doing?” she asks.
“We don’t know what some of them were doing, but one was carting
dung up the hill-side.”
“What good was there in doing that?” she asks.
“He said it made the swathe better there than anywhere else,”
they reply. “Witless now is Njal,” says Hallgerda, “though he
knows how to give counsel on everything.”
“How so?” they ask.
“I will only bring forward what is true to prove it,” says she;
“why doesn’t he make them cart dung over his beard that he may be
like other men? Let us call him `the Beardless Carle’: but his
sons we will call `Dungbeardlings’; and now do pray give some
stave about them, Sigmund, and let us get some good by thy gift
of song.”
“I am quite ready to do that,” says he, and sang these verses:
“Lady proud with hawk in hand,
Prithee why should dungbeard boys,
Reft of reason, dare to hammer
Handle fast on battle shield?
For these lads of loathly feature —
Lady scattering swanbath’s beams (1) —
Shaft not shun this ditty shameful
Which I shape upon them now.
He the beardless carle shall listen
While I lash him with abuse,
