University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XIV. OF THE HOLMGANG AT THE ALTHING.

[Songs extracted from the prose narrative.]

[Gunnlaug.]

“Out to isle of eel-field
Dight am I to hie me:
Give, O God, thy singer
With glaive to end the striving.
Here shall I the head cleave
Of Helga's love's devourer,
At last my bright sword bringeth
Sundering of head and body.”

[“Thou, singer, knowest not surely]

[Raven.]
“Thou, singer, knowest not surely
Which of us twain shall gain it;
With edge for leg-swathe eager,
Here are the wound-scythes bare now.
In whatso-wise we wound us,
The tidings from the Thing here,
And fame of thanes' fair doings,
The fair young maid shall hear it.”

[“Born was she for men's bickering]

[Gunnlaug.]
“Born was she for men's bickering:
Sore bale hath wrought the war-stem,
And I yearned ever madly
To hold that oak-tree golden.
To me then, me destroyer
Of swan-mead's flame, unneedful
This looking on the dark-eyed,
This golden land's beholding.”

[“Moon of linen-lapped one]

[Gunnlaug.]
“Moon of linen-lapped one,
Leek-sea-bearing goddess,
Hawk-keen out of heaven
Shone all bright upon me;
But that eyelid's moonbeam
Of gold-necklaced goddess
Her hath all undoing
Wrought, and me made nought of.”