CHAPTER IV. HAY-NEED THIS SEASON.

THAT summer was the grass light and bad, and hay-harvest poor because of the wet, and men had exceeding small hay-stores. Blundketil went round to his tenants that autumn, and told them that he would have his rents paid in hay on all his lands : " For I have much cattle to fodder, and little hay enow ; but I will settle how much is to be slaughtered this autumn in every house of my tenants, and then will matters go well."

Now weareth summer away and cometh winter, and there soon began to be exceeding scarcity north about the Lithe, and but little store there was to meet it, and men were hard pressed. So weareth the time over Yule, and when Thorn-tide was come folk were sore pinched, and for many the game was up.

But on an evening came to Blundketil one of his tenants, and told him that hay had .failed him, and

Hen Thorir. 131

prayed deliverance of him. Master Blundketil answered : "How cometh that ? I deemed that I had so looked to it in the autumn that things would be like to go welL"

The man answered that less had been slaughtered than he had commanded. Then said Blundketil : " Well, let us make a bargain together : I will deliver thee from thy trouble this time, but thou shalt tell no man thereof ; because I would not that folk should fall to coming on me : all the less since ye have not kept my commandment."

So that man fared home, and told his friend that Blundketil was peerless among men in all dealings, and that he had helped him at his need ; and that man In turn told his friend, and so the matter became known all over the countryside.

Time wore and Goi came, and therewith came two more of the tenants to Blundketil, and told him that they were out of hay. Blundketil answered : " Ye have done ill in departing from my counsel ; for so it is, that though I have hay good store, yet have I more beasts therewithal : now if I help you, then shall I have nought for my own stock ; lo you ! that is the choice herein. But they pressed the case, and bewailed their misery, till he thought it pity of their moans, and so let drive home an hundred and' forty horses, and let slay forty of the worst of them, and gave his tenants the fodder these should have had : so they fare home glad at heart. But the winter worsened as it wore, and the hope of many a man was quenched.

132 The Saga Library.