sate Gudmund the Powerful.

Asgrim went and stood before him, and hailed him.

Gudmund took his greeting well, and asked him to sit down.

"I will not sit," said Asgrim, "but I wish to pray thee for help,
for thou art a bold man and a mighty chief."

"I will not be against thee," said Gudmund, "but if I see fit to
yield thee help, we may well talk of that afterwards," and so he
treated them well and kindly in every way.

Asgrim thanked him for his words, and Gudmund said, "There is one
man in your band at whom I have gazed for a while, and he seems
to me more terrible than most men that I have seen."

"Which is he?" says Asgrim.

"Four go before him," says Gudmund; "dark brown is his hair, and
pale is his face; tall of growth and sturdy. So quick and shifty
in his manliness that I would rather have his following than that
of ten other men; but yet the man is unlucky-looking."

"I know," said Skarphedinn, "that thou speakest at me, but it
does not go in the same way as to luck with me and thee. I have
blame, indeed, from the slaying of Hauskuld, the Whiteness
Priest, as is fair and right; but both Thorkel Foulmouth and
Thorir Helgi's son spread abroad bad stories about thee, and that
has tried thy temper very much."

Then they went out, and Skarphedinn said, "Whither shall we go
now?"

"To the booths of the men of Lightwater," said Asgrim.

There Thorkel Foulmouth (2) had set up his booth.

Thorkel Foulmouth had been abroad and worked his way to fame in
other lands. He had slain a robber east in Jemtland's wood, and
then he fared on east into Sweden, and was a messmate of Saurkvir
the Churl, and they harried eastward ho; but to the east of
Baltic side (3) Thorkel had to fetch water for them one evening;
then he met a wild man of the woods (4), and struggled against
him long; but the end of it was that he slew the wild man.
Thence he fared east into Adalsyssla, and there he slew a flying
fire-drake. After that he fared back to Sweden, and thence to
Norway, and so out to Iceland, and let these deeds of derring do
be carved over his shut bed, and on the stool before his high
seat. He fought, too, on Lightwater way with his brothers
against Gudmund the Powerful, and the men of Lightwater won the
day. He and Thorir Helgi's son spread abroad bad stories about
Gudmund. Thorkel said there was no man in Iceland with whom he
would not fight in single combat, or yield an inch to, if need
were. He was calle