Njal's Saga (44 page)

Mord had called on nine men who lived near Thingvellir to hear the suit.
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Then Mord named witnesses and presented the four charges which he had made against Flosi and Eyjolf, and he used the same words in his presentation of the suit that he had used in his summoning. He presented these suits for lesser outlawry to the Fifth Court in the same words he had used when he summoned them.

Mord named witnesses and invited the nine neighbours to take seats on the west bank of the river. Then he named witnesses and invited Flosi and Eyjolf to challenge the panel. They went up to challenge the panel and examined it and were unable to find fault with any of them, so they went away and were ill-pleased.

Mord named witnesses and asked the nine neighbours he had called on to announce their findings, whether for or against. Mord's panel went before the court, and one of them announced their findings and all expressed assent. They had all sworn the Fifth Court oath, and they found Flosi guilty as charged and found against him. They presented their findings in this form to the Fifth Court in the presence of the man before whom Mord had declared his suit. Then they announced all the findings that they were obliged to announce, for all the charges, and this was lawfully done.

Eyjolf Bolverksson and Flosi looked for a way to fault the proceedings, but they found none.

Mord named witnesses – ‘I call for witness that these nine neighbours whom I have called on in the suits which I brought against Flosi Thordarson and Eyjolf Bolverksson have presented their findings and have found these men to be guilty as charged.'

He named these witnesses to this.

Again he named witnesses – ‘I call for witness,' he said, ‘that I invite Flosi Thordarson, or any other man who has taken over his defence for him, to begin his defence, for now all the evidence for
the prosecution has been presented: requesting that the oath be heard, swearing the oath, reciting the charges, giving witness to the summoning, inviting the neighbours to be seated, asking for the panel to be challenged, announcing the findings of the panel, and naming witnesses to these findings.'

He named these witnesses to the evidence which had been presented.

Then the man in whose presence the suits had been presented rose and summed up the case. He first summed up how Mord asked them to listen to his oath and to the presentation of his suit and to all the evidence for the prosecution. He next summed up how Mord and his co-swearers swore their oaths. Then he summed up how Mord presented his suit, and he spoke in such a way that he had in his summary every word which Mord had used in the presentation of his suit and in his summoning – ‘and Mord presented the suit to the Fifth Court in the same words which he had used when he summoned them.'

Then he summed up how they brought testimony to the summoning, and he repeated every word which Mord had used in his summoning and which they had used in their testimony – ‘and now I have repeated them', he said, ‘in my summary. The witnesses gave their testimony to the Fifth Court in the same words which he had used when he summoned them.'

Then he summed up how Mord invited the neighbours to take their seats; next he summed up how he invited Flosi, or any man who had taken over his defence for him, to challenge the panel. Then he summed up how the neighbours went before the court and announced their findings and declared Flosi to be guilty as charged – ‘the nine neighbours announced their findings, thus stated, to the Fifth Court.'

Then he summed up how Mord named witnesses to the fact that the findings were announced, and then summed up how Mord named witnesses to the evidence presented and asked for the defence to raise objections.

Mord named witnesses – ‘I call for witness,' he said, ‘that I forbid Flosi Thordarson, or any other man who has taken over his defence for him, to raise objections, since all the evidence for the prosecution
has now, with this summing-up and recitation of the evidence, been brought forth.'

Then the man who did the summing-up summed up this testimony.

Mord named witnesses and asked the judges to judge the case.

Then Gizur the White said, ‘You will have to do more than this, Mord, because four dozen men have not the right to make a judgement.'

Flosi said to Eyjolf, ‘What are we to do now?'

Eyjolf answered, ‘It's a tight spot to get out of, and we had best wait, for I suspect they are going to make an error in the prosecution: Mord asked for a judgement in the case at once, but they must first remove six men from the court; then they must invite us, before witnesses, to remove another six, but that we won't do. Then they will have to remove another six men, but they will overlook this detail. Their whole case will be invalid if they don't remove six, because three dozen is the right number to make judgement.'
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Flosi said, ‘You are a clever man, Eyjolf, and few can equal you.'

Mord Valgardsson named witnesses – ‘I call for witness that I remove six men from the court' – and he named them all by name – ‘I deny you seats in the court, and I remove you according to the rules of the Althing and the law of the land.'

After that he invited Flosi and Eyjolf, before witnesses, to remove another six men from the court, but they chose not to do so. Mord then asked for the case to be judged. When the case had been judged, Eyjolf named witnesses and declared the judgement, and their whole suit, invalid. He pointed out that three-and-a-half dozen had made the judgement, whereas it should have been three dozen – ‘we shall now bring charges against them in the Fifth Court and have them declared outlaws.'

Gizur the White said to Mord, ‘You overlooked something very important when you made this slip. This is very bad luck. What shall we do now, my kinsman Asgrim?'

Asgrim said, ‘We must send a man to my son Thorhall and find out what advice he has for us.'

Snorri the Godi found out how the lawsuits were going. He drew up his men between the Almannagja gorge and the Hlad booth, after he ordered what they were to do.

To turn now to Thorhall: a messenger came to him and told him how things stood, how they would all be outlawed and how their suits for homicide had all been quashed. When Thorhall heard this he was so upset that he could not speak a word. He sprang out of his bed and seized his spear, Skarphedin's gift, with both hands and drove it through his leg. Flesh and the core of the boil clung to the spear when he had cut open his leg, and a gush of blood and a flow of pus poured like a stream across the floor. He then walked out of the booth without a limp and moved so fast that the messenger could not keep up with him, all the way to the Fifth Court. There he came across Grim the Red, Flosi's kinsman, and as soon as they met Thorhall thrust at him with the spear and pierced his shield and split it in two, and the spear passed through him so that the point came out between his shoulders. Thorhall threw him off the spear, dead.

Kari Solmundarson caught sight of this and spoke to Asgrim: ‘Here comes your son Thorhall, and he has already killed a man – it would be a great shame if he alone had the courage to avenge the burning.'

‘That shall not be,' said Asgrim. ‘Let's attack them.'

Shouts were heard through all their forces, and then a war-cry went up. Flosi and his men turned to face them and they urged each other on eagerly.

To turn now to Kari Solmundarson: he went to face Arni Kolsson and Hallbjorn the Strong. When Hallbjorn saw him he swung his sword at him and aimed at his leg, but Kari leaped into the air and Hallbjorn missed him. Kari turned to Arni Kolsson and swung at him and hit him on the shoulder and split his shoulder bone and collar bone and cut right down into his chest. Arni fell dead at once. Then he swung at Hallbjorn and hit the shield and passed through it and cut off Hallbjorn's big toe. Holmstein threw his spear at Kari, but he caught it in mid-air and sent it back, and that was the death of one of Flosi's men.

Thorgeir Skorargeir came up to Hallbjorn the Strong and made such a lunge at him with one hand that Hallbjorn fell over and had a hard time getting to his feet, and then he fled. Thorgeir next met up with Thorvald Thrym-Ketilsson and at once swung at him with the axe Battle-hag which had belonged to Skarphedin. Thorvald took the blow on his shield, but Thorgeir split the entire shield and the upper point of the blade hit his chest and went into his body, and Thorvald fell at once, dead.

To turn now to Asgrim and his son Thorhall: with Hjalti and Gizur the White they made an assault on Flosi and the Sigfussons and the other burners. The fighting was fierce, and the out come was that Asgrim and his side pressed so hard that Flosi's side turned away. Gudmund the Powerful and Mord Valgardsson and Thorgeir Skorargeir attacked the men from Oxarfjord and the East Fjords and Reykjadal; the fighting was fierce there too. Kari Solmundarson came up to Bjarni Brodd-Helgason; he grabbed a spear and thrust it at him, and it hit his shield. Bjarni jerked his shield to the side – otherwise the spear would have gone through him. He swung his sword at Kari and aimed at the leg; Kari pulled his leg back and turned on his heel, so that Bjarni missed him. Then Kari swung back at once. A man stepped in and brought his shield in front of Bjarni. Kari split the shield from top to bottom, and the point of his sword hit the man in the thigh and tore open his whole leg; he fell down at once and was maimed for as long as he lived. Kari then grabbed the spear in both hands and turned to Bjarni and thrust it at him, and Bjarni saw no other choice but to fall sideways away from the thrust, and when he got back on his feet he ran away.

Thorgeir Skorargeir then attacked Holmstein Bessason and Thorkel Geitisson; the outcome of this was that Holmstein and Thorkel turned away. There was much jeering at them from Gudmund's men.

Thorvard Tjorvason from Ljosavatn received a great wound; his arm was pierced, and men thought that Halldor, the son of Gudmund the Powerful, had thrown the spear. Thorvard never received compensation for that wound as long as he lived.

The crush of men was great. Though a few of the things that happened are told here, there were many more for which no stories have come down.

Flosi had told his men that they should try to reach shelter in Almannagja gorge if they were overpowered, for there they could only be attacked on one side. But the band of men under Hall of Sida and his son Ljot had retreated in the face of the attack by Asgrim and his men, and they were going down along the east side of the Oxara.

Then Hall spoke to Ljot: ‘This is a terrible business, my son – the whole Thing fighting. I want us to ask for help to keep the two sides apart, even though we might be blamed for this by some people. Wait for me at the end of the bridge, while I go to the booths to get help.'

Ljot spoke: ‘If I see that Flosi and his men need help from us, I will run to them at once.'

‘You must do what you like,' said Hall, ‘but I beg you to wait for me.'

Then it happened that Flosi's men broke out in flight, and all of them fled to the west side of the Oxara, and Asgrim and Gizur the White and all their forces went after them. Flosi and his men retreated between the Virki booth and the Hlad booth. Snorri the Godi had drawn up his men so tightly there that they could not go that way.

Snorri the Godi called to Flosi, ‘Why are you in such a rush? Who's chasing you?'

Flosi said, ‘You're not asking this because you don't know the answer. Could it be you who's keeping us from reaching shelter in Almannagja?'

‘I'm not keeping you,' he said, ‘but I know who is, and I'll tell you, without being asked, that it's Thorvald Kroppinskeggi and Kol.'

Both these men were dead and had been the worst sort of men.

Snorri the Godi spoke again, to his own men: ‘Go at them now with sword and with spear, and drive them away from here. They'll only hold out a short while when the others attack from below. But don't pursue them – just let them have it out with the others.'

Skafti Thoroddsson's son was Thorstein Hare-lip; he was fighting alongside his father-in-law Gudmund the Powerful. When Skafti heard this he went to Snorri the Godi's booth and was planning to ask Snorri to go along with him to separate the fighters. But just before he reached the door of Snorri's booth the fighting reached its peak. Asgrim and his men were coming up from below.

Thorhall said, ‘There's Skafti Thoroddsson now, father.'

Asgrim said, ‘I see that, son' – and he quickly cast his spear at Skafti and hit him just below the thickest part of the calf and pierced both legs. Skafti fell at the blow and could not get back up. The only thing the men near him could do was to drag him, laid out flat, into the booth of a certain sword-sharpener.

Asgrim and his forces were advancing so fast that Flosi and his men turned south along the river to the Modruvellir booth. A man named Solvi was outside one of the booths; he was boiling meat in a large cauldron and had just taken the meat out, but the cauldron was boiling at its strongest. Solvi caught sight of the East Fjords men as they fled – they had almost come up to him.

Solvi spoke: ‘What? Are they all cowards, these men from the East Fjords who are fleeing here?' he said. ‘Even Thorkel Geitisson is running, and a lot of lies must have been told about him – many have said that he's all valour, but no one's running faster than him now.'

Hallbjorn the Strong was near him and said, ‘You won't get away with saying that we're all cowards.' He grabbed him and lifted him up high and plunged him head first into the cauldron. Solvi died at once. The pursuers then came towards Hallbjorn and he had to keep fleeing.

Flosi cast his spear at Bruni Haflidason and hit him in the waist, and that was his death. He had been one of Gudmund the Powerful's men.

Thorstein Hlennason pulled the spear out of the wound and threw it at Flosi and hit him on the leg; Flosi's leg was badly wounded and he fell down, but got back up at once.