Gisli Sursson's Saga and The Saga of the People of Eyri

by Martin Regal

  After Thorir’s death one of Thorodd’s farmhands became ill, and he lay in bed for three nights before dying. Then one after another died until six people had died altogether. It was coming up to Advent, although at that time it was not observed in Iceland. The store-room was so well stocked with dried fish that the door could not be closed. The pile went right up to the cross-beam and a ladder had to be used to get to the pile from above. Then things started to happen in the evenings. Just as people sat by the fire, they could hear the dried fish being torn at in the store-room, but whenever they went to look, they could find nothing alive in there.

  During the winter just before Yule, Thorodd the farmer went out to Nes to fetch his dried fish. There were six men altogether in the ten-oared boat, and they spent the night out there. The same night that Thorodd had left, when the people at Froda came up to the fireside in the evening, they saw a seal’s head coming up out of the fireplace. One of the servants saw it first when she came in. She took a club that was inside the doorway and struck the seal on the head. But the seal rose up with the blow and reared up towards Thorgunna’s bed-curtains. Then one of Thorodd’s men went up and started beating the seal, but with every blow it rose up further until its flippers appeared, and then the man fell down unconscious. Everyone else who was present became very frightened.

  Then the boy Kjartan rushed forward and lifted up an iron sledgehammer and brought it down on the seal’s head. It was a tremendous blow but the seal just shook its head and looked around. Kjartan kept going, with blow after blow, and the seal went back down as if he were driving in a nail. He kept beating until the seal went so far down that he hammered the floor over its head. And so it went on throughout the winter, with all the revenants fearing Kjartan the most.

  54 The next morning when Thorodd and his men were coming back from Nes with the dried fish, they were all drowned out near Enni. The boat and the fish were washed ashore beneath Enni, but the bodies were never found. When this news reached Froda, Kjartan and Thurid invited their neighbours to a funeral feast. They took the Yule ale and used it at the funeral.

  On the first night of the funeral feast, once everyone was in their seats, Thorodd the farmer and his companions came into the fire room, completely drenched. People welcomed Thorodd warmly, thinking it was a good omen, because at that time they believed that the drowned had been well received by the sea-goddess Ran if they attended their own funeral feast. There was still a small degree of belief in heathen ways, even though people had been baptized and called themselves Christians.

  Thorodd and his companions walked all the way across the sleeping hall, which had two doors, and into the fire room without responding to anyone’s greeting. When they sat down by the fire, the people of the farm rushed out of the fire room, but Thorodd and his companions stayed there until the fire had turned to ashes. Then they went away. It went on like this every evening during the funeral feast, with the drowned men coming in and sitting by the fire. So there was much to talk about at the feast, but some people thought that it would end once the feast was over. The guests went home after the feast, and the homestead seemed rather dull afterwards.

  On the evening after all the guests had left, the evening fire was lit as usual. As soon as the fire was burning, Thorodd and his companions came in and they were all soaking wet. They sat down by the fire and started to wring out their wet clothes. After they had sat down, Thorir Wood-leg and his six companions came in too. They were all covered in earth, and they began shaking out their clothes and splattering mud on to Thorodd and his men. The people of the farm rushed out of the fire room, as might be expected, and had neither evening light nor heating-stones nor anything else that they usually got from the fire.

  The next evening the fire was made in another room, in the hope that they were less likely to come there. But it did not turn out that way, and everything went just as it had the previous evening, with both parties coming to the fireside.

  The third evening Kjartan came up with a plan to make a very long fire in the fire room, and a fire for cooking in another room. And this was done. And it worked, with Thorodd and his companions sitting by the long fire and the people of the farm sitting by the little fire, and this went on all through Yule.

  But more and more noise was coming from the pile of dried fish, so that night and day dried fish could be heard being torn up. Then they reached the point when the dried fish needed to be used for meals, so they went to look at the pile. The man who climbed up on to the pile saw that there was a tail coming up through it, which was like a singed oxtail, but it was short and covered in seal hair. The man at the top of the pile took hold of the tail and tugged at it, and then asked other men to come up and help him. Both women and men climbed up on to the pile, and tugged at the tail but they could not budge it. It did not occur to anyone that the tail was anything but dead. But when they tugged their hardest, the tail stripped the skin off the palms of the hands of those tugging hardest. Nothing was ever seen of the tail again. The dried fish was then unpiled, and each fish in it had been ripped from its skin so that there was no fish left right down through the pile, but there was also nothing alive in the pile.

  The next thing that happened is that Thorir Wood-leg’s wife, Thorgrima Magic-cheek, became ill. She lay in bed for a little while before she died, and the same evening that she was buried she was seen among her husband Thorir’s company. Then there was a second wave of the sickness that had come when the tail first appeared, and more women than men died. Six people died this time, and some people fled because of the hauntings and ghosts. In the autumn there had been thirty servants there, but eighteen had died and five had run away, so there were only seven left.

  55 One day after these strange things had happened, Kjartan went over to Helgafell to see his uncle, Snorri the Godi, and get his advice about what to do about the strange happenings. There was a priest at Helgafell at the time who had been sent to Snorri the Godi by Gizur the White. Snorri sent the priest over to Froda with his son Thord Cat and Kjartan, as well as six other men. He advised them that Thorgunna’s bed-canopy should be burnt, and all the revenants prosecuted at a door court. Then the priest should say mass, consecrate water and hear everybody’s confession. They rode back to Froda, and on the way they asked the people from the neighbouring farm to come with him. They arrived on the evening before Candlemas, at the time when the evening fires were being lit. The mistress of the house, Thurid, had taken ill with the same sickness that the others had died of.

  Kjartan went inside at once, and saw that Thorodd and his companions were sitting by the fire as usual. Kjartan took down Thorgunna’s bed-canopy, and then went into the fire room and took some embers from the fire and went outside with them. Then all the bedclothes that Thorgunna had owned were burnt. After that Kjartan summonsed Thorir Wood-leg, and Thord Cat summonsed the farmer Thorodd for walking around the homestead without permission, and depriving people of both their life and health. Everyone sitting by the fire was summonsed. A door court was held and charges were pronounced, with the whole procedure following that of a court at an assembly. Decisions were made, and cases summed up and judged.

  When the sentence was being passed on Thorir Wood-leg, he stood up and said, ‘I sat here as long as I could.’

  After that, he went out through the door at which the court was not being held. Then sentence was passed on the shepherd.

  When he heard it, he stood up and said, ‘I will leave now, but I think it would have been better if I’d left earlier.’

  When Thorgrima Magic-cheek heard that sentence had been passed on her, she stood up and said, ‘I stayed here as long as it was peaceful.’

  Then each and every one of them was charged, and as sentence was passed they stood up in turn and all responded in the same way. Then they went outside, and it was obvious from each of their statements that they left reluctantly. Eventually Thorodd the farmer was sentenced.

  And when he heard it, he stood up and said, ‘I th
ink there’s little peace to be had here, so we will all get going.’

  And with that he left.

  Then Kjartan and his companions went inside. The priest carried consecrated water and sacred relics around the whole house. The next day the priest sang all the prayers and celebrated mass solemnly, and after that all the revenants and ghosts left Froda, and Thurid began to recover from her sickness and finally she recuperated completely. In the spring after these marvels, Kjartan took on new servants and lived at Froda for a long time after that, and he turned into the greatest of champions.

  56 Snorri the Godi lived at Helgafell for eight years after Christianity was adopted by law in Iceland. During his last winter there his father-in-law, Styr, was killed at Jorvi in Flisa district. Snorri the Godi travelled south to collect the body and when he went into the women’s room at Hrossholt, Styr was sitting up and holding the farmer’s daughter around the waist. The next spring Snorri the Godi exchanged land with Gudrun Osvifsdottir and moved his household to Tunga in Saelingsdal. That was two years after the death of Bolli Thorleiksson, Gudrun Osvifsdottir’s husband.28

  The same spring Snorri the Godi travelled south to Borgarfjord with four hundred men to bring an action over Styr’s killing. Styr’s brother, Vermund the Slender, who was then living in Vatnsfjord, was with him. Also there were Steinthor of Eyri, Thorodd Thorbrandsson from Alftafjord, Styr’s nephew Thorleik Brandsson from Krossnes, as well as many other men of distinction. The furthest they got on their journey south was the Hvita river, at Haugsvad across the river from Baer. To the south of the river were Illugi the Black, Kleppjarn the Old, Thorstein Gislason, Gunnlaug Serpent-tongue, and Thorstein Thorgilsson from the island of Hafsfjardarey, who was married to Vigdis, Illugi the Black’s daughter. There were many other men of distinction there, and their company was five-hundred strong.

  Snorri the Godi and his men were not able to continue south across the river, so they began proceedings when they had come as close to them as they safely might. Snorri summonsed Gest for the killing of Styr, but the same charge by Snorri was quashed at the Althing that summer. The same autumn Snorri the Godi rode south to Borgarfjord, and killed Thorstein Gislason and his son Gunnar. Steinthor of Eyri was with him then, as was Thorodd Thorbrandsson, Bard Hoskuldsson, Thorleik Brands-son and ten other men.

  The next spring Snorri the Godi and Thorstein of Hafsfjardarey, Illugi the Black’s son-in-law, met at the Thorsnes Assembly. Thorstein was the son of Thorgils and the grandson of Thorfinn Seal-Thorisson from Raudamel. His mother was Aud, the daughter of Alf from Dalir, so Thorstein was the cousin of Thorgils Arason of Reykjaholar, Thorgeir Havarsson, Thorgils Holluson, Bitra-Oddi and the people of Alftafjord, Thorleif Kimbi and the Thorbrandssons. Thorstein had presented many cases at the Thorsnes Assembly.

  One day on the assembly slopes Snorri the Godi asked Thorstein whether he had many cases to bring at the assembly. Thorstein said he had prepared several cases.

  ‘You would probably like us to support your cases as you and the men of Borgarfjord supported our cases last spring,’ said Snorri.

  ‘I’m not keen on that at all,’ Thorstein replied.

  After Snorri the Godi had said this, his sons and many of Styr’s other kinsmen spoke aggressively to Thorstein, saying that it would be best if every case he brought was dismissed there, and that it would serve him right if he had to pay with his own life for the humiliating treatment that he and his father-in-law, Illugi the Black, had dealt them the previous summer. Thorstein had little to say in response, and everyone left the assembly slopes. Thorstein and his kinsmen from Raudamel had gathered together a large force. When it was time to go to court, Thorstein was planning to proceed with all the cases he had brought. When Styr’s blood-relatives and kinsmen by marriage found this out, they took their weapons and positioned themselves between the court and the path the men of Raudamel would take to the court. A battle began between the two sides.

  Thorstein of Hafsfjardarey only cared about attacking Snorri the Godi. Thorstein was a tall, strong man, and a brave fighter. As Thorstein was making a fierce attack on Snorri, Snorri’s nephew, Kjartan from Froda, ran up in front of him. Thorstein and Kjartan fought for a long time, and the exchange of blows was fierce. Then friends of both of them came between them and arranged a truce.

  After the battle Snorri the Godi said to his nephew Kjartan, ‘You fought hard today, Breidavik-man.’

  Kjartan replied rather angrily, ‘You don’t need to reproach me for my pedigree.’

  In this battle, seven of Thorstein’s men were killed and many from both sides were wounded. The case was brought to a settlement there at the assembly, and Snorri the Godi was not ungenerous in the terms of the agreement, because he did not want the case to be taken up again at the Althing since no compensation had yet been paid for the killing of Thorstein Gislason. He thought he had enough to answer for at the Althing, without having to debate this case.

  Thormod Trefilsson described all these events, the killing of Thorstein Gislason and his son Gunnar and the battle at the Thorsnes Assembly that followed, in this verse from his poem ‘Words of the Raven’:

  34.

  And still the stoic

  destroyer of the spear-strip spear-strip: shield

  slew two men south of the river

  at the quarrel of swords; quarrel of swords: battle

  seven warriors lay

  robbed of life after that

  at the ness of troll’s harm; troll’s harm: the god Thor; his ness:

  such is the evidence. Thorsnes

  It was a condition of their settlement that Thorstein should be able to present all the cases he had prepared at the Thorsnes Assembly. And in the summer at the Althing a settlement was made over the killing of Thorstein Gislason and his son Gunnar. Those men who had participated in the killings with Snorri the Godi went abroad. That summer Thorstein of Hafsfjardarey withdrew the godi’s right of authority over the people of Raudamel from the Thorsnes Assembly, because he considered he had been overpowered there by Snorri and his supporters. Thorstein and his kinsmen then set up an assembly at Straumfjord and it remained there for a long time afterwards.

  57 At the time when Snorri the Godi had been living for a few years at Saelingsdalstunga, there was a man named Ospak living further north at Eyri in Bitra. He was the son of Kjallak from Kjallaksa river near Skridinsenni, and he was a married man, with a young son named Glum. Ospak was a big, strong man, very unpopular and troublesome. He had seven or eight men with him who were involved in many quarrels with the men up in the north. They usually travelled by ship close to the coast, robbing people of their belongings or anything that had drifted on to their land as they saw fit.

  There was a man called Alf the Short who lived at Thambardal in Bitra. He was a wealthy man and a notable farmer. He was a thingman of Snorri the Godi’s, and took care of his driftage rights under the headland at Gudlaugshofdi. Alf believed he was treated coldly by Ospak and his companions and complained repeatedly about this treatment to Snorri the Godi whenever they met.

  Thorir Gold-Hardarson was then living at Tunga in Bitra. He was a friend of Sturla Thjodreksson, nicknamed Killer-Sturla, who lived at Stadarhol in Saurbaer. Thorir was a successful farmer and was the leading man in the Bitra district. He was in charge of looking after Sturla’s driftage rights in the north. Ospak and Thorir were often on bad terms and it varied who had the upper hand. Ospak was the leading man to the west in the Krossardal and Enni districts.

  One winter there was an early cold snap that meant there was no grazing pasture around Bitra. People then faced serious losses, and some drove their livestock on to the heath. The previous summer Ospak had built a fortification around his farm at Eyri. It was a secure fortification if properly defended. In the depths of winter a fierce storm blew down from the north and raged for a week. When the storm let up, people could see that drift ice had come all the way up into the outer reaches of the fjord, but not as far in as Bitra. People then went t
o search the foreshores of their land. Word got around that a large fin whale had been beached between Stika and Gudlaugshofdi. Snorri the Godi and Sturla Thjodreksson had the largest legal stakes in the whale, but Alf the Short and several other farmers also had a share in it. Some men from Bitra travelled to where the whale was and cut it up according to Thorir’s and Alf’s instructions.

  When the men were in the middle of flensing the whale, they saw a boat coming towards them across the fjord from Eyri, and they recognized it as the twelve-oared boat that Ospak owned. The boat landed near the whale and fifteen fully armed men came ashore. When Ospak got ashore, he went straight to the whale and asked who was in charge of it.

  Thorir said that he was responsible for his and Sturla’s share, and that Alf was looking after his share and Snorri the Godi’s share, ‘and each of the other farmers is taking care of his own share.’

  Ospak asked how much of the whale they would give him.

  ‘I won’t give you any of the portion I am responsible for,’ Thorir replied, ‘but I don’t know if the other farmers want to sell you what they have. How much are you offering?’

  ‘You should know, Thorir, that I’m not in the habit of paying for whale-meat from you men of Bitra,’ said Ospak.

  ‘Well, I don’t expect you’ll get much for free,’ Thorir replied.

  The whale-meat that had been cut up already was lying in a pile, but it had not yet been divided up. Ospak told his men to get the meat and load it on to their boat. The men who had been cutting up the whale had few weapons except axes which they had been using to cut it. When Thorir saw that Ospak and his men were approaching the whale-meat, he called on his men not to let themselves be robbed. They all rushed to the other side, away from the whale carcass, and Thorir led the charge. Ospak turned at once towards him and dealt him a blow with the back of his axe. The blow landed on his ear, and he fell down unconscious. Those near him grabbed him and pulled him over to them, crowding around him as he lay there unconscious. As a result the whale was left unguarded. Then Alf the Short came forward and asked them not to take the whale-meat.