.

Now the Markfleet was then flowing between sheets of ice on both sides,
and there were tongues of ice bridging it across every here and there.

Thrain said that he meant to ride home that evening, but Runolf said
that he ought not to ride home; he said, too, that it would be more wary
not to fare back as he had said he would before he left home.

"That is fear, and I will none of it," answers Thrain.

Now those gangrel women whom they had put across the Fleet came to
Bergthorsknoll, and Bergthora asked whence they came, but they answered,
"Away east under Eyjafell".

"Then, who put you across Markfleet?" said Bergthora.

"Those," said they, "who were the most boastful and bravest clad of
men."

"Who?" asked Bergthora.

"Thrain Sigfus' son," said they, "and his company, but we thought it
best to tell thee that they were so full-tongued and foul-tongued
towards this house, against thy husband and his sons."

"Listeners do not often hear good of themselves," says Bergthora. After
that they went their way, and Bergthora gave them gifts on their going,
and asked them when Thrain might be coming home.

They said that he would be from home four or five nights.

After that Bergthora told her sons and her son-in-law Kari, and they
talked long and low about the matter.

But that same morning, when Thrain and his men rode from the east, Njal
woke up early and heard how Skarphedinn's axe came against the panel.

Then Njal rises up, and goes out, and sees that his sons are all there
with their weapons, and Karl, his son-in-law too. Skarphedinn was
foremost. He was in a blue cape, and had a targe, and his axe aloft on
his shoulder. Next to him went Helgi; he was in a red kirtle, had a helm
on his head, and a red shield, on which a hart was marked. Next to him
went Kari; he had on a silken jerkin, a gilded helm and shield, and on
it was drawn a lion. They were all in bright holiday clothes.

Njal called out to Skarphedinn--

"Whither art thou going, kinsman?"

"On a sheep hunt," he said.

"So it was once before," said Njal, "but then ye hunted men."

Skarphedinn laughed at that, and said--

"Hear ye what the old man says? He is not without his doubts."

"When was it that thou spokest thus before?" asks Kari.

"When I slew Sigmund the white," says Skarphedinn, "Gunnar of Lithend's
kinsman."

"For what?" asks Kari.

"He had slain Thord Freedmanson, my foster-father."

Njal went home, but they fared up in