after. A verse was made:

"In days gone by men bathed their blades
in the streaming gore of a foeman's wound.
But now a wretch of all honour bereft
reddens his dastard axe in whey."

CHAPTER XII. BATTLE AT RIFSKER

At that time there came over Iceland a famine the like of which had
never been seen before. Nearly all the fisheries failed, and also the
drift wood. So it continued for many years.

One autumn some traders in a sea-going ship, who had been driven out of
their course, were wrecked at Vik. Flosi took in four or five of
them with their captain, named Steinn. They all found shelter in the
neighbourhood of Vik and tried to rig up a ship out of the wreckage, but
were not very successful. The ship was too narrow in the bow and stern
and too broad amidships. In the spring a northerly gale set in which
lasted nearly a week, after which men began to look for drift.

There was a man living in Reykjanes named Thorsteinn. He found a whale
stranded on the south side of the promontory at the place now called
Rifsker. It was a large rorqual, and he at once sent word by a messenger
to Flosi in Vik and to the nearest farms.

At Gjogr lived a man named Einar, a tenant of the Kaldbak men whom they
employed to look after the drift on that side of the fjord. He got to
know of the whale having been stranded and at once rowed across the
fjord in his boat to Byrgisvik, whence he sent a messenger to Kaldbak.
When Thorgrim and his brother heard the news they got ready to go with
all speed to the spot. There were twelve of them in a ten-oared boat,
and six others, with Ivar and Leif, sons of Kolbeinn. All the farmers
who could get away went to the whale.

In the meantime Flosi had sent word to his kinsmen in the North at
Ingolfsfjord and Ofeigsfjord and to Olaf the son of Eyvind who lived at
Drangar. The first to arrive were Flosi and the men of Vik, who at once
began to cut up the whale, carrying on shore the flesh as it was cut.
At first there were about twenty men, but more came thronging in. Then
there came the men of Kaldbak with four ships. Thorgrim laid claim to
the whale and forbade the men of Vik to cut, distribute, or carry away
any portion of it. Flosi called upon him to show proof that Eirik had
in express words given over the drift to Onund; if not, he said he would
prevent them by force. Thorgrim saw that he was outnumbered and would
not venture on fighting. Then there came a ship acro