CHAPTER XXXII
Bardi Puts Away His Wife.
Now it is to be told of Illugi that he cometh upon the field of deed, and seeth there things unlooked for, and great withal. Then sang Tind a song when Illugi asked how many they had been:
"The stem of the battle-craft here was upbearing
His spear-shaft with eight and with ten of the ash-trees
That bear about ever the moon of the ocean;
With us five less than thirty men were they a-fighting.
But nine of the flingers of hail of the bow,
Yea, nine of our folk unto field there have fallen,
And surely meseemeth that dead they are lying,
Those staves of the flame by the lathe that is fashioned.
"Of the North the two cravers of heirship from Eid
In the field are they fallen as seen is full clearly,
And Gudbrand's two sons they fell there moreover,
Where the din of the spear-play was mighty mid men.
But never henceforward for boot are we biding;
Unless as time weareth the vengeance befall.
Now shall true folk be holding a mind of these matters,
As of sword-motes the greatest ere fought amongst men."
[Here a page in the old record is so obscure, as to leave readable only bits here and there, from which one gleans so much as that someone of Illugi's company saw where Thorod lay wounded, yet still alive, and forthwith went up to him and smote off his head. When Illugi was aware of this, he said he had had but an evil errand thither in slaying the man. Then Illugi with a band of one hundred men gives chase to Bardi and his folk. But he is overtaken by a sudden darkness, and bids his folk return, and brings to the South the bodies of the fallen. Many were wounded of the men of the South: those Gislungs Arni Frodi, Thormod, and Thorarin very sorely. In hope of entrapping the Northerners if they should return to fetch their dead, Illugi left a band of men to watch the bodies, who rigged up a tent for themselves, and kept guard there for a while. Bardi went with his company first to Nial, and thence to his foster-father, Thorarin of Lechmote, and tells him privily the news of his journey, giving out that he was minded now to go fetch the bodies of the fallen. But Thorarin counselled him to wait a while, for he guessed that the Southerners would tire of the watch. And even as he guessed so the matter befell, that they wearied of the watch upon the bleak mountain, and returned to their homes.
Next the story has told how Bardi sought aid from friends and neighhours in household needs, that he might maintain a bodyguard at Asbiorn's-ness against the Southerners gathering men to beset him in his house. In this matter his wife Gudrun sought to prevail with her father to come bounteously to Bardi's aid, but he hung back, and the unbroken tale begins again when Bardi has gone himself to his father-in-law to urge the matter.] "Biorn," says he, "how much wilt thou add to my store of slaughtered meat, if I eke my household in some way?"
Spake Thorbiorn: "Nought will I add thereto, because nought is due from me." So other folk busied themselves about the matter with Biorn, but could get nothing good out of him.
Bardi said: "Then neither will have aught good of the matter, and they will have to pay on whom the worser lot falleth; but I shall do that whereby thou shalt be most dishonoured." And therewithal Bardi nameth witnesses, and gives forth that he putteth from him Gudrun, Biorn's daughter "and for this cause," says Bardi, "that thou art by a great deal too much of a miser for any doughty man to put up with having thee for a father-in-law; nor shalt thou ever have back from me either dower or jointure."