Epic and Romance: Essays on Medieval LiteratureKer, W. P. (William Paton)
History
Epic and Romance: Essays on Medieval Literature
Ker, W. P. (William Paton)
Epic poetry -- History and criticism; Literature, Medieval -- History and criticism; Romances -- History and criticism
They both had a stroke at him, Kolbein and Ari Ingimund's
son, and more of them besides hewed at him, and he came by
his death there.
Then the hall fell in, beginning from the north side into
the loft above the hall. Now all the buildings began to
flare up, except that the guest-house did not burn, nor the
ladies' room, nor the dairy.
Now to go back to Gizur: he made his way through the house
to the dairy, with Gudmund, his kinsman, after him. Gizur
asked him to go away, and said that one man might find a way
of escape, if fate would have it so, that would not do for
two. Then Parson John Haldorsson came up; and Gizur asked
them both to leave him. He took off his coat of mail and his
morion, but kept his sword in his hand. Parson John and
Gudmund made their way from the dairy to the south door, and
got quarter. Gizur went into the dairy and found a curd-tub
standing on stocks; there he thrust the sword into the curds
down over the hilts. He saw close by a vat sunk in the earth
with whey in it, and the curd-tub stood over it and nearly
hid the sunken vat altogether. There was room for Gizur to
get into it, and he sat down in the whey in his linen
clothes and nothing else, and the whey came up to his
breast. It was cold in the whey. He had not been long there
when he heard voices, and their talk went thus, that three
men were meant to have the hewing of him; each man his
stroke, and no hurry about it, so as to see how he took it.
The three appointed were Hrani and Kolbein and Ari. And now
they came into the dairy with a light, and searched about
everywhere. They came to the vat that Gizur was in, and
thrust into it three or four times with spears. Then there
was a wrangle among them; some said there was something in
the vat, and others said no. Gizur kept his hand over his
belly, moving gently, so that they might be as long as
possible in finding out that there was anything there. He
had grazes on his hands, and all down to his knees skin
wounds, little and many. Gizur said afterwards that before
they came in he was shaking with cold, so that it rippled in
the vat, but after they came in he did not shiver at all.
They made two searches through the dairy, and the second
time was like the first. After that they went out and made
ready to ride away. Those men that still had life in them
were spared, to wit, Gudmund Falkason, Thord the Deacon, and
Olaf, who was afterwards called Guest, whose life Einar
Thorgrimsson had attempted before. By that time it was dawn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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