“There’s not much to choose, though, between you two.  Thou hast hangnails on every finger, and Njal is beardless.”

“That’s true,” says Bergthora, “yet neither of us finds fault with the other for it; but Thorwald, thy husband, was not beardless, and yet thou plottedst his death.”

Then Hallgerda said—­“It stands me in little stead to have the bravest man in Iceland if thou dost not avenge this, Gunnar!”

He sprang up and strode across away from the board, and said—­“Home I will go, and it were more seemly that thou shouldest wrangle with those of thine own household, and not under other men’s roofs; but as for Njal, I am his debtor for much honour, and never will I be egged on by thee like a fool”.

After that they set off home.

“Mind this, Bergthora,” said Hallgerda, “that we shall meet again.”

Bergthora said she should not be better off for that.  Gunnar said nothing at all, but went home to Lithend, and was there at home all the winter.  And now the summer was running on towards the Great Thing.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

KOL SLEW SWART.

Gunnar rode away to the Thing, but before he rode from home he said to Hallgerda—­“Be good now while I am away, and show none of thine ill temper in anything with which my friends have to do”.

“The trolls take thy friends,” says Hallgerda.

So Gunnar rode to the Thing, and saw it was not good to come to words with her.  Njal rode to the Thing too, and all his sons with him.

Now it must be told of what tidings happened at home.  Njal and Gunnar owned a wood in common at Redslip; they had not shared the wood, but each was wont to hew in it as he needed, and neither said a word to the other about that.  Hallgerda’s grieve’s[19] name was Kol; he had been with her long, and was one of the worst of men.  There was a man named Swart; he was Njal’s and Bergthora’s house-carle; they were very fond of him.  Now Bergthora told him that he must go up into Redslip and hew wood; but she said—­“I will get men to draw home the wood”.

He said he would do the work She set him to win; and so he went up into Redslip, and was to be there a week.

Some gangrel men came to Lithend from the east across Markfleet, and said that Swart had been in Redslip, and hewn wood, and done a deal of work.

“So,” says Hallgerda, “Bergthora must mean to rob me in many things, but I’ll take care that he does not hew again.”

Rannveig, Gunnar’s mother, heard that, and said—­“There have been good housewives before now, though they never set their hearts on manslaughter”.

Now the night wore away, and early next morning Hallgerda came to speak to Kol, and said—­“I have thought of some work for thee”; and with that she put weapons into his hands, and went on to say—­“Fare thou to Redslip; there wilt thou find Swart”.