“Hast thou heard,” she said, “how Thor challenged Christ to single combat, and how he did not dare to fight with Thor?”

“I have heard tell,” says Thangbrand, “that Thor was naught but dust and ashes, if God had not willed that he should live.”

“Knowest thou,” she says, “who it was that shattered thy ship?”

“What hast thou to say about that?” he asks.

“That I will tell thee,” she says.

  He that giant’s offspring[55] slayeth
  Broke the new-field’s bison stout,[56]
  Thus the Gods, bell’s warder[57] grieving. 
  Crushed the falcon of the strand;[58]
  To the courser of the causeway[59]
  Little good was Christ I ween,
  When Thor shattered ships to pieces
  Gylfi’s hart[60] no God could help.

And again she sang another song—­

  Thangbrand’s vessel from her moorings,
  Sea-king’s steed, Thor wrathful tore,
  Shook and shattered all her timbers,
  Hurled her broadside on the beach;
  Ne’er again shall Viking’s snow-shoe,[61]
  On the briny billows glide,
  For a storm by Thor awakened,
  Dashed the bark to splinters small.

After that Thangbrand and Steinvora parted, and they fared west to
Bardastrand.

CHAPTER XCIX.

OF GEST ODDLEIF’S SON.

Gest Oddleif’s son dwelt at Hagi on Bardastrand, He was one of the wisest of men, so that he foresaw the fates and fortunes of men.  He made a feast for Thangbrand and his men.  They fared to Hagi with sixty men.  Then it was said that there were two hundred heathen men to meet them, and that a Baresark was looked for to come thither, whose name was Otrygg, and all were afraid of him.  Of him such great things as these were said, that he feared neither fire nor sword, and the heathen men were sore afraid at his coming.  Then Thangbrand asked if men were willing to take the faith, but all the heathen men spoke against it.

“Well,” says Thangbrand, “I will give you the means whereby ye shall prove whether my faith is better.  We will hallow two fires.  The heathen men shall hallow one and I the other, but a third shall he unhallowed; and if the Baresark is afraid of the one that I hallow, but treads both the others, then ye shall take the faith.”

“That is well-spoken,” says Gest, “and I will agree to this for myself and my household.”

And when Gest had so spoken, then many more agreed to it.

Then it was said that the Baresark was coming up to the homestead, and then the fires were made and burned strong.  Then men took their arms and sprang up on the benches, and so waited.

The Baresark rushed in with his weapons.  He comes into the room, and treads at once the fire which the heathen men had hallowed, and so comes to the fire that Thangbrand had hallowed, and dares not to tread it, but said that he was on fire all over.  He hews with his sword at the bench, but strikes a cross-beam as he brandished the weapon aloft.  Thangbrand smote the arm of the Baresark with his crucifix, and so mighty a token followed that the sword fell from the Baresark’s hand.