“But still thou wilt be good enough to have the fight, for
Hildigunna guessed that thou wouldest be easy in matching thy
horse.”
“How came ye to talk about that?” says Gunnar.
“There were some men,” say they, “who were sure that no one would
dare to fight his horse with ours.”
“I would dare to fight him,” says Gunnar; “but I think that was
spitefully said.”
“Shall we look upon the match as made, then?” they asked.
“Well, your journey will seem to you better if ye have your way
in this; but still I will beg this of you, that we so fight our
horses that we make sport for each other, but that no quarrel may
arise from it, and that ye put no shame upon me; but if ye do to
me as ye do to others, then there will be no help for it but that
I shall give you such a buffet as it will seem hard to you to put
up with. In a word, I shall do then just as ye do first.”
Then they ride home. Starkad asked how their journey had gone
off; they said that Gunnar had made their going good.
“He gave his word to fight his horse, and we settled when and
where the horsefight should be; but it was plain in everything
that he thought he fell short of us, and he begged and prayed to
get off.”
“It will often be found,” says Hildigunna, “that Gunnar is slow
to be drawn into quarrels, but a hard hitter if he cannot avoid
them.”
Gunnar rode to see Njal, and told him of the horsefight, and
what words had passed between them, “But how dost thou think the
horsefight will turn out?”
“Thou wilt be uppermost,” says Njal, “but yet many a man’s bane
will arise out of this fight.”
“Will my bane perhaps come out of it?” asks Gunnar.
“Not out of this,” says Njal; “but still they will bear in mind
both the old and the new feud who fare against thee, and thou
wilt have naught left for it but to yield.”
Then Gunnar rode home.
ENDNOTES:
(1) She was daughter of Hroald the Red and Hildigunna Thorstein
Titling’s daughter. The mother of Hildigunna was Aud Eyvind
Karf’s daughter, the sister of Modolf the Wise of Mosfell,
from whom the Modylfings are sprung.
58. HOW GUNNAR’S HORSE FOUGHT
Just then Gunnar heard of the death of his father-in-law
Hauskuld; a few nights after, Thorgerda, Thrain’s wife, was
delivered at Gritwater, and gave birth to a boy child. Then she
sent a man to her mother, and bade her choose whether it should
be called Glum or Hauskuld. She bade call it Hauskuld. So that
name was given to the boy.
Gunnar and Hallgerda had two sons, the one’s name was Hogni and
the other’s Grani. Hogni was a brave man of few words,
