“Is Raven, the son of Onund, here?”
He said he was.
Then spake Gunnlaug, “Thou well knowest that thou hast got to wife my avowed bride, and thus hast thou made thyself my foe. Now for this I bid thee to holm here at the Thing, in the holm of the Axe-water, when three nights are gone by.”
Raven answers, “This is well bidden, as was to be looked for of thee, and for this I am ready, whenever thou wiliest it.”
Now the kin of each deemed this a very ill thing. But, at that time it was lawful for him who thought himself wronged by another to call him to fight on the holm.
So when three nights had gone by they got ready for the holmgang, and Illugi the Black followed his son thither with a great following. But Skapti, the lawman, followed Raven, and his father and other kinsmen of his.
Now before Gunnlaug went upon the holm he sang,—
“Out to isle ofeel-field
Dight am I to hie me:
Give, O God, thy singer
With glaive to end the striving.
Here shall I the head cleave
Of Helga’s love’s devourer,
At last my bright sword bringeth
Sundering of head and body.”
Then Raven answered and sang,—
“Thou, singer, knowest not surely
Which of us twain shall gain it;
With edge for leg-swathe eager,
Here are the wound-scythes bare now.
In whatso-wise we wound us,
The tidings from the Thing here,
And fame of thanes’ fair doings,
The fair young maid shall hear it.”