Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 4, 1893.djvu/235

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The Oldest Icelandic Folk-lore.
227

east toward Solheimar. Lodmund's thrall saw it, and said that a sea was coming down on them from the north. Lodmund was blind by this time, and told the thrall to lead him to this bucketfull that he called a sea, and when he returned, said, "I don't think this is a sea." Then he bade the thrall accompany him to the water, "and stick the point of my staff into it." There was a ring on the staff, and Lodmund held the staff with both hands, and the ring in his teeth. Then the water began to fall west again toward Skogar, and so both he and Thrasi continued each to turn the water from themselves until they met at some deep clefts, and agreed that the water should flow down there the shortest way to the sea. That is now called Jokuls-river, and separates the districts. (4. 5.)

Thrasi was also rammaukinn. (5. 1.)

29. Thorarinn korni was very "hamrammr" (2. 8.)

30. [Arngeirr had two sons, Thorgils and Odd.]

Arngeirr and Thorgils left home in drift to search for their sheep, and did not return. Odd went to look for them, and found them both dead, killed by a white bear, which was drinking their blood when he came on it. Odd killed the bear and took it home, and it is said that he ate the whole of it, saying that he avenged his father in killing the bear and his brother in eating it. After this he became ill-tempered and difficult to deal with; he was so hamrammr that he left home one time in the evening, and reached Thjórsárdal next morning to help his sister, whom the Thjórsdale men were going to stone to death. (3. 20.)

31. Dufthak was very "hamrammr" (5. 3); so was Thorkell bundinfoti (id.).

Dufthak of Dufthaksholt was the freedman of the brothers Hildir and Hallgeirr (who came from the British settlements). He was very hamrammr, and so was Stórólf Hængsson, who lived at Hvoll; the two of them quarrelled about pasturage. A second-sighted man saw one evening, just about sunset, a huge bear going from Hvoll, and a bull from Dufthaksholt: they met at Stórólfsvöll, and fought fiercely, but the bear had the best of it. In the morning it was seen that the dale where they had met was as if the earth had been turned up. Both of them were severely injured. (5. 5.)