Said Thorstein, “Carry thy cowing away to the fellows up yonder at the mountains; for down here, on the Meres, it shall avail thee nought.”
Now in the evening they come home; but next morning Gunnlaug rode up to Gilsbank, and prayed his father to ride with him a-wooing out to Burg.
Illugi answered, “Thou art an unsettled man, being bound for faring abroad, but makest now as if thou wouldst busy thyself with wife-wooing; and so much do I know, that this is not to Thorstein’s mind.”
Gunnlaug answers, “I shall go abroad all the same, nor shall I be well pleased but if thou further this.”
So after this Illugi rode with eleven men from home down to Burg, and Thorstein greeted him well. Early in the morning Illugi said to Thorstein, “I would speak to thee.”
“Let us go, then, to the top of the Burg, and talk together there,” says Thorstein; and so they did, and Gunnlaug went with them.
Then said Illugi, “My kinsman Gunnlaug tells me that he has begun a talk with thee on his own behalf, praying that he might woo thy daughter Helga; but now I would fain know what is like to come of this matter. His kin is known to thee, and our possessions; from my hand shall be spared neither land nor rule over men, if such things might perchance further matters.”
Thorstein said, “Herein alone Gunnlaug pleases me not, that I find him an unsettled man; but if he were of a mind like thine, little would I hang back.”
Illugi said, “It will cut our friendship across if thou gainsayest me and my son an equal match.”
Thorstein answers, “For thy words and our friendship then, Helga shall be vowed, but not betrothed, to Gunnlaug, and shall bide for him three winters: but Gunnlaug shall go abroad and shape himself to the ways of good men; but I shall be free from all these matters if he does not then come back, or if his ways are not to my liking.”