home with your wain whole. You have,' said he, 'gotten
great honour by travel; but there is the old saw, "Many
farings, many fortunes." Take you now here as much
share of the property as you think will make you a great
man.'
Thorolf said he would make yet one journey more. 'And I have,' he said, 'an urgent errand for the journey. But when I come back next time I shall settle here. But Asgerdr, your foster-child, shall go out with me to her father. This he bade me when I came west.'
Skallagrim said Thorolf would have his way.
Thereafter Thorolf went to his ship, and put it in order. And when all was ready they moved the ship out to Digraness, and it lay there waiting a wind. Then Asgerdr went to the ship with him. But before Thorolf left Borg Skallagrim went and took down from the rafters over the door the axe-the king's gift-and came out with it. The haft was now black with smoke, and the blade rusted. Skallagrim looked at the axe's edge. Then he handed it to Thorolf, reciting this stave:
The fierce wound-wolf's tooth-edge
Hath flaws not a few,
An axe all deceitful,
A wood cleaver weak.
Begone worthless weapon,
With shaft smoke begrimed:
A prince ill-beseemed it
Such present to send.'
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Kettle Blund comes out to Iceland.
THIS had happened while Thorolf was away, that one summer a merchant ship from Norway came into Borgar-firth. Merchant-ships used then commonly to be drawn up into rivers, brook-mouths, or ditches. This ship belonged to a man named Kettle, and by-named Blund; he was a Norwegian of noble kin and wealthy. His son, named Geir, who was then of full age, was with him in the
