Then Geir the priest and Gizur the white went up and gave Gunnar pledges that they would keep the peace in good faith.

Gunnar rode home from the Thing, and thanked men for their help, and gave gifts to many, and got the greatest honour from the suit.

Now Gunnar sits at home in his honour.

CHAPTER LVII.

OF STARKAD AND HIS SONS.

There was a man named Starkad; he was a son of Bork the waxytoothed-blade, the son of Thorkell clubfoot, who took the land round about Threecorner as the first settler.  His wife’s name was Hallbera.  The sons of Starkad and Hallbera were these:  Thorgeir and Bork and Thorkell.  Hildigunna the leech was their sister.

They were very proud men in temper, hard-hearted and unkind.  They treated men wrongfully.

There was a man named Egil; he was a son of Kol, who took land as a settler between Storlek and Reydwater.  The brother of Egil was Aunund of Witchwood, father of Hall the strong, who was at the slaying of Holt-Thorir with the sons of Kettle the smooth-tongued.

Egil kept house at Sandgil; his sons were these:  Kol and Ottar and Hauk.  Their mother’s name was Steinvor; she was Starkad’s sister.

Egil’s sons were tall and strifeful; they were most unfair men.  They were always on one side with Starkad’s sons.  Their sister was Gudruna nightsun, and she was the best-bred of women.

Egil had taken into his house two Easterlings; the one’s name was Thorir and the other’s Thorgrim.  They were not long come out hither for the first time, and were wealthy and beloved by their friends; they were well skilled in arms, too, and dauntless in everything.

Starkad had a good horse of chesnut hue, and it was thought that no horse was his match in fight.  Once it happened that these brothers from Sandgil were away under the Threecorner.  They had much gossip about all the householders in the Fleetlithe, and they fell at last to asking whether there was any one that would fight a horse against them.

But there were some men there who spoke so as to flatter and honour them, that not only was there no one who would dare do that, but that there was no one that had such a horse.

Then Hildigunna answered, “I know that man who will dare to fight horses with you”.

“Name him,” they say.

“Gunnar has a brown horse,” she says, “and he will dare to fight his horse against you, and against any one else.”

“As for you women,” they say, “you think no one can be Gunnar’s match; but though Geir the priest or Gizur the white have come off with shame from before him, still it is not settled that we shall fare in the same way.”

“Ye will fare much worse,” she says; and so there arose out of this the greatest strife between them.  Then Starkad said—­

“My will is that ye try your hands on Gunnar last of all; for ye will find it hard work to go against his good luck.”