ee,
But thou'lt win through it;
Age ails me,
And I must rue it!"

"I do hate Vali," said Halldor; and Bersi answered thus in verse:--

(48)
"Yon Vali, so wight as he would be,
Well wot I our pasture he grazes;
Right fain yonder fierce helmet-wearer
Under foot my dead body would trample!
But often my wrongs have I wreaked
In wrath on the mail-coated warrior--
On the stems of the sun of the ocean
I have stained the wound-serpent for less!"

And again he said:--

(49)
"With eld I am listless and lamed--
I, the lord of the gold of the armlet:
I sit, and am still under many
A slight from the warders of spear-meads.
Though shield-bearers shape for the singer
To shiver alone in the grave-mound,
Yet once in the war would I redden
The wand that hews helms ere I fail."

"Thy heart is not growing old, foster-father mine!" cried Halldor.

Upon that Bersi fell into talk with Steinvor, and said to her "I am
laying a plot, and I need thee to help me."

She said she would if she could.

"Pick a quarrel," said he, "with Thordis about the milk-kettle, and do
thou hold on to it until you whelm it over between you. Then I will come
in and take her part and give thee nought but bad words. Then go to Vali
and tell him how ill we treat thee."

Everything turned out as he had planned. She went to Vali and told him
that things were no way smooth for her; would he take her over the gap
(to Bitra to her father's:) and so he did.

But when he was on the way back again, out came Bersi and Halldor to
meet him. Bersi had a halberd in one hand and a staff in the other, and
Halldor had Whitting. As soon as Vali saw them he turned and hewed
at Bersi. Halldor came at his back and fleshed Whitting in his
hough-sinews. Thereupon he turned sharply and fell upon Halldor.
Then Bersi set the halberd-point betwixt his shoulders. That was his
death-wound.

Then they set his shield at his feet and his sword at his head, and
spread his cloak over him; and after that got on horseback and rode to
five homesteads to make known the deed they had done and then rode home.
Men went and buried Vali, and the place where he fell has ever since
been called Vali's fall.

Halldor was twelve winters old when these doings came to pass.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. How Steingerd Was Married Again.

Now there was a