Bandamanna Saga
Reference: 12
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This same autumn Hermundr gathered a band together, and went out to the Leet of Hvammr, being minded to go to Borg at the same time, and to burn Egill in his house. And when they came out along Valafell, they heard something, as if a string of a stringed instrument had snapped up in the mountain. Thereat Hermundr felt ill with a sting under the armpit, so that they had to turn about in their journeying, and by degrees the sickness grew heavier on him. But when they came up by Thor-gantsta°ir, they had to lift him off his horse and to send for a priest to S°umşli. And when the priest came, Hermundr had already lost his speech, but the priest remained with him. And once, when the priest bent down over him, he heard his lips muttering: "Two hundred in the gorge, two hundred in the gorge;" then he died, and the end of him was even such as we have now set forth.
Now Oddr sat at home in much lordliness and love of his wife. But all this time nothing had been heard of spakr. Svala was married to a man, who hight MĦr, and was the son of Hildir, and set up a house at Svalastead. BjĦlfi was hight a brother of his, a half crazy fellow, but right mighty of his hand. Bergth³r was called one, who dwelt at Bĥ°-varsh³lar; he had summed up the case, when spakr was made guilty. Now at Bĥ°varsh³lar, one evening, it so happened, when people sat round the fires, that a man arrived there, and, rapping at the door, bade the good man come outside. The bonder soon was aware that the arrival was none but spakr, and said that he was not minded to go outside. spakr challenged him hard to come outside, but nowhither did he move, but forbade all his men to go out, and thus they parted. But in the morning, when the women went to the byre, they found there nine cows wounded to death. This was bruited about far and wide. But again, as time wore on, it so happened, that a man walked into the house at Svalastead, and into the chamber in which MĦr was sleeping; this at an early hour in the morning. The man stepped up to the bed, and stabbed MĦr with a glave, so that it pierced the hollow of his body. The man was spakr himself.
Just as he was turning about for the door, BjĦlfi sprang up, driving into him a whittling knife. spakr went along to a stead called Borgar-h³ll, and there gave out his manslaughter, whereupon he went away, and nothing more was heard of him for a while. The slaughter of MĦr was spoken of far and wide, and ill in all places. Then there happened a startling thing, that five of the best stud horses belonging to Oddr were found all dead, and the deed was saddled on spakr. Yet for a long while still nothing was heard of him. But in the autumn, when people went about mountains to gather up wethers, they came upon a cavern within certain rocks, wherein they found a man dead, and beside him standing a bowl full of blood, that was as black as pitch to look on. This was spakr, and people thought that the wound dealt him by BjĦlfi had become his bane, but that he had come by his end from starvation as well; and that was the close of his life. It is not on record that any blood suit followed the slaughter of MĦr, nor the killing of spakr.
Oddr dwelt at Melr to old age, and was accounted of the worthiest of men; and from him are descended the men of Mi°fjĥr°r, Snorri KĦlfson among them, and many other great men. From the aforestated time, there was the best love and most desirable kinship between Oddr and his father. And thereby this story comes to an end.