No one offered. Then Grani said: "He who goes against the baresark will die swiftest, therefore I am willing to go myself."
All the Orkneyingers cried out against that, saying they should die together within the hall; it might be Sweyn would come in time to save them.
Then Rolf spoke and said: "No man in this place, not even Frodi our strongest, will have any chance against Vemund, so long as we fight with steel weapons. For I have heard the ways of such men to be these: before fighting they look upon the weapons of the other champion, and when they look, by witchcraft they make steel or iron powerless against them. Such a man is Vemund named. Yet if thou, Grani, wilt give me what I desire, I will find a way to slay him."
"Anything I have," answered Grani, "is thine."
"Give me then," said Rolf, "the bow and arrows of the viking."
Then Grani gave him the bow and the quiver, and Rolf cried to the messenger to say to Vemund that in half an hour one would meet him with the bow. At that great laughter rose among the outlaws, and those in the hall and in the church felt no confidence in Rolf.
But he said to Frodi, "Go to the forge and heat it." And he said to Grani, "Bring me here some silver." Then when the forge was heated and the silver was brought, Rolf said to Frodi:
"Make me now three silver arrowheads, the best thou canst, after the pattern of these here in the quiver." So Frodi made the arrow-heads quickly and with great skill, so that no one could have told them apart from the arrow-heads of iron, for they were black from the fire. And Rolf first set a dish of whale-oil to heat by the forge, and then took the heads from three of the arrows. When the new arrow-heads were made, Rolf bound them with sinews upon the shafts.
A man said: "But what wilt thou do with the arrows if thou canst not string the bow?"
Rolf answered nothing. He took the whale-oil and oiled those three arrows. Then he heated the oil hotter, and began to rub it on the bow. First he oiled the string and rubbed it long; then he oiled the wood. And the wood became darker with the oil, and took a finer polish; fresher it seemed, gleaming in the light of the forge. Rolf rubbed for many minutes, and the bow became ever darker; he held it then over the forge, turning it in every way, and it took to itself the fire of the coals. Then Rolf oiled the string once more, heating it as well; and at last they saw he meant to string the bow. Against his foot he set it, and bent it, and slipped the string up to the notch; it seemed as if a child could have done the deed, and the men burst out with a shout.