“When they made ready to go home, Glúm gave his kinsman Bjarni a red stallion, six winters old, and said he would give him another if any horse surpassed this one. They went home from the feast, and Bjarni at once fed it on hay, and it was very well kept there. The next summer he was very curious to know how it would fight. He talked about having a fight against a horse owned by Thorkel Geirason of Skörd, and it was decided that they should make the horses fight at Midsummer at Máfahjalli. Thormód and his son Eyjúlf had a grey stallion with a mane of a different colour, and always sold horses begotten by it, but did not like to use it in a horse-fight. It is said that once the stallions of Thormód and Bjarni met and bit each other so that they were all bloody. The servant of Bjarni came to him and said that he had seen the two stallions bitten, and red all over. Bjarni sent word to Thorkel that they would not have the horse-fight, as his stallion was no longer able to fight. Bjarni supposed that Eyjúlf and his father Thormód had made the horses fight, as they could not have maltreated each other thus by themselves, and therefore offered to have a horse-fight when eight weeks of the summer had passed. Thormód asked his son to decide whether to do it or not, for he wanted the fight. The horses were led forward, and the fight went on well till eleven rounds had passed. Then Eyjúlf’s stallion took hold of the jawbone of Bjarni’s, and held on until Bjarni came up and struck it off. Eyjúlf turned round and struck the stallion, and the stick rebounded heavily from the horse and hit Bjarni’s shoulder. The horses were parted at once. Eyjúlf went to Bjarni and said this mishap had not been wished by him. ‘I will show whether I did this intentionally or not. I will give thee sixty rams if thou wilt not blame me for this, and then thou canst see that I did not wish this to happen.’ Bjarni said that he had caused it himself, and thought they had not made the stallions bloody. Then they went home. In the autumn at the _réttir_ (sheep-meeting) Eyjúlf took out sixty rams. Thormód asked what he was going to do with these. Eyjúlf answered that he had given them to Bjarni. Thormód said, ‘The blow was heavy, nor is the payment little.’ As soon as he had said this Bjarni turned to him and struck him a death-blow, and would not receive the sheep” (Vemund’s Saga, ch. 23).[254] These horse-fights occasionally led to a struggle.