The Story of Burnt Njal Part 95

"Go and tell this to Flosi, that Kari Solmund's son hath slain Kol Thorstein's son. I give notice of this slaying as done by my hand."

Then Kari went to his s.h.i.+p, and told his s.h.i.+pmates of the manslaughter.

Then they sailed north to Beruwick, and laid up their s.h.i.+p, and fared up into Whitherne in Scotland, and were with Earl Malcolm that year.

But when Flosi heard of Kol's slaying, he laid out his body, and bestowed much money on his burial.

Flosi never uttered any wrathful words against Kari.

Thence Flosi fared south across the sea and began his pilgrimage, and went on south, and did not stop till he came to Rome. There he got so great honour that he took absolution from the Pope himself, and for that he gave a great sum of money.

Then he fared back again by the east road, and stayed long in towns, and went in before mighty men, and had from them great honour.

He was in Norway the winter after, and was with Earl Eric till he was ready to sail, and the Earl gave him much meal, and many other men behaved handsomely to him.

Now he sailed out to Iceland, and ran into Hornfirth, and thence fared home to Swinefell. He had then fulfilled all the terms of his atonement, both in fines and foreign travel.

CHAPTER CLVIII.

OF FLOSI AND KARI.

Now it is to be told of Kari that the summer after he went down to his s.h.i.+p and sailed south across the sea, and began his pilgrimage in Normandy, and so went south and got absolution and fared back by the western way, and took his s.h.i.+p again in Normandy, and sailed in her north across the sea to Dover in England.

Thence he sailed west, round Wales, and so north, through Scotland's Firths, and did not stay his course till he came to Thraswick in Caithness, to master Skeggi's house.

There he gave over the s.h.i.+p of burden to Kolbein and David, and Kolbein sailed in that s.h.i.+p to Norway, but David stayed behind in the Fair Isle.

Kari was that winter in Caithness. In this winter his housewife died out in Iceland.

The next summer Kari busked him for Iceland. Skeggi gave him a s.h.i.+p of burden, and there were eighteen of them on board her.

They were rather late "boun," but still they put to sea, and had a long pa.s.sage, but at last they made Ingolf's Head. There their s.h.i.+n was dashed all to pieces, but the men's lives were saved. Then, too, a gale of wind came on them.

Now they ask Kari what counsel was to be taken; but he said their best plan was to go to Swinefell and put Flosi's manhood to the proof.

So they went right up to Swinefell in the storm. Flosi was in the hall.

He knew Kari as soon as ever he came into the hall, and sprang up to meet him, and kissed him, and sate him down in the high-seat by his side.

Flosi asked Kari to be there that winter, and Kari took his offer. Then they were atoned with a full atonement.

Then Flosi gave away his brother's daughter Hildigunna, whom Hauskuld the priest of Whiteness had had to wife, to Kari, and they dwelt first of all at Broadwater.

Men say that the end of Flosi's life was, that he fared abroad, when he had grown old, to seek for timber to build him a hall; and he was in Norway that winter, but the next summer he was late "boun"; and men told him that his s.h.i.+p was not seaworthy.

Flosi said she was quite good enough for an old and death-doomed man, and bore his goods on s.h.i.+pboard and put out to sea. But of that s.h.i.+p no tidings were ever heard.

These were the children of Kari Solmund's son and Helga Njal's daughter--Thorgerda and Ragneida, Valgerda, and Thord who was burnt in Njal's house. But the children of Hildigunna and Kari were these, Starkad, and Thord, and Flosi.

The son of Burning-Flosi was Kolbein, who has been the most famous man of any of that stock.

And here we end the STORY of BURNT NJAL.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Gubrandr Vigfusson.]

[Footnote 2: This word is invented like Laxdaela, Gretla, and others, to escape the repet.i.tion or the word Saga, after that of the person or place to which the story belongs. It combines the idea of the subject and the telling in one word.]

[Footnote 3: Many particulars mentioned in the Saga as wonderful are no wonders to us. Thus in the case of Gunnar's bill, when we are told that it gave out a strange sound before great events, this probably only means that the shaft on which it was mounted was of some hard ringing wood unknown in the north. It was a foreign weapon, and if the shaft were of lance wood, the sounds it gave out when brandished or shaken would be accounted for at once without a miracle.]

[Footnote 4: There can be no doubt that it was considered a grave offence to public morality to tell a Saga untruthfully. Respect to friends and enemies alike, when they were dead and gone, demanded that the histories of their lives, and especially of their last moments, should be told as the events had actually happened. Our own Saga affords a good ill.u.s.tration of this, and shows at the same time how a Saga naturally arose out of great events. When King Sigtrygg was Earl Sigurd's guest at Yule, and Flosi and the other Burners were about the Earl's court, the Irish king wished to hear the story of the Burning, and Gunnar Lambi's son was put forward to tell it at the feast on Christmas day. It only added to Kari's grudge against him to hear Gunnar tell the story with such a false leaning, when he gave it out that Skarphedinn had wept for fear of the fire, and the vengeance which so speedily overtook the false teller was looked upon as just retribution.

But when Flosi took up the story, he told it fairly and justly for both sides, "and therefore," says the Saga, "what he said was believed".]

[Footnote 5: oresound, the gut between Denmark and Sweden, at the entrance of the Baltic, commonly called in English, The Sound.]

[Footnote 6: That is, he came from what we call the Western Isles or Hebrides. The old appellation still lingers in "Sodor (i.e. the South isles) and Man".]

[Footnote 7: This means that Njal was one of those gifted beings who, according to the firm belief of that age, had a more than human insight into things about to happen. It answers very nearly to the Scottish "second sight".]

[Footnote 8: Lord of rings, a periphrasis for a chief, that is, Mord.]

[Footnote 9: Earth's offspring, a periphrasis for woman, that is, Unna.]

[Footnote 10: "Oyce," a north country word for the mouth of a river, from the Icelandic _os_]

[Footnote 11: "The Bay," the name given to the great bay in the east of Norway, the entrance of which from the North Sea is the Cattegat, and at the end of which is the Christiania Firth. The name also applies to the land round the Bay, which thus formed a district, the boundary of which, on the one side, was the promontory called Lindesnaes, or the Naze, and on the other, the Gota-Elf, the river on which the Swedish town of Gottenburg stands, and off the mouth of which lies the island of Hisingen, mentioned shortly after.]

[Footnote 12: Permia, the country one comes to after doubling the North Cape.]

[Footnote 13: A town at the mouth of the Christiania Firth. It was a great place for traffic in early times, and was long the only mart in the south-east of Norway.]

[Footnote 14: Rill of wolf--stream of blood.]

[Footnote 15: A province of Sweden.]

[Footnote 16: An island in the Baltic, off the coast of Esthonia.]

[Footnote 17: Endil's courser--periphrasis for a s.h.i.+p.]

[Footnote 18: Sigar's storm--periphrasis for a sea-fight.]