CHAPTER IX. THE BURNING OF BLUNDKETIL.

SO it is said that at nightfall Thorwald and his company ride to the house at Ornolfsdale, where all folk were now Asleep ; there they drag a stack of brushwood to the house, and set fire thereto; and Blundketil and his folk awoke not before the house was ablaze over them.

Blundketil asked who had lighted that hot fire, and Thorir told who they were. Blundketil asked

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if aught might get him peace ; but Thorir said : " There is nought for it but to burn." And they departed not before every man's child therein was burnt up.

Now Herstein, BlundketiFs son, had gone that evening to his foster-father, Thorbiorn, who was by-named the Strider, and of whom it was said that he was not always all utterly there where he was seen. So Herstein awoke the next morning, and asked his foster-father if he were awake. " Yea," said he, " what wilt thou ? "

" Medreamed that my father came in hither with his raiment all ablaze, and even as one flame he seemed to me." Then they arise and go out, and see the fire presently : so they take their weapons, and go thither in haste ; but all men were gone away by then they came thither. Said Herstein : " Woeful tidings have befallen here ; what rede now ? "

Thorbiorn answers : "Now will I make the most of the offer which Odd-a-Tongue hath often made me, to come to him if I were in any need."

" Nought hopeful I deem that," saith Herstein. But they go nevertheless, and come to Broadlairstead, and call out Odd; who cometh out and greeteth them, and asketh for tidings ; so they told him what had come to pass, and he spake as deeming it ill. Then Thorbiorn taketh up the word : " So it is, master Odd," saith he, " that thou hast promised me thy furtherance ; now therefore will I take it of thee if thou wilt give us some good rede, and bring it to pass."

Odd said that he would do even so ; and so they

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ride to Ornolfsdale, and come there before day ; by then were the houses fallen in, and the fire was growing pale.

So Odd rideth to a certain house that was not utterly burned ; there he laid hold of a birch rafter, and pulled it down from the house, and then rode with the burning brand withershins round about the house, and spake : " Here take I land to myself, for here I see no house inhabited ; hearken ye to this all witnesses hereby." And therewithal he smote his horse, and rode away. Then said Herstein : "What rede now ? This one has turned out ill." Said Thorbiorn : " Hold thou thy peace if thou mayest, whatsoever befall."

Herstein answered and said that all he had spoken hitherto was not overmuch forsooth. Now the outbower wherein was the lading of the Eastmen was unburned, and much other goods was therein moreover. Herewith old Thorbiorn vanished away, and as Herstein looked qn the house, he saw this outbower opened, and the goods borne out, but yet beheld no man. Then are the goods bound up into loads ; and then he hears a great clatter in the home-mead, and lo ! his father's horses are being driven home, and the sheep, and the neat from the byre, and all the live-stock : then were the loads heaved up, and the whole drove went their ways, and every penny's- worth brought off. Then Herstein turned about, and saw that master Thorbiorn was driving the cattle.

So they wend their ways down along the countryside to Staffholts-tongue, and so west over Northwater,

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