Now, one morning, as the brothers Hermund and Gunnlaug went to Axe-water to wash, on the other side went many women towards the river, and in that company was Helga the Fair. Then said Hermund,—
“Dost thou see thy friend Helga there on the other side of the river?”
“Surely, I see her,” says Gunnlaug, and withal he sang:—
“Born was she for men’s bickering:
Sore bale hath wrought the war-stemy
And I yearned ever madly
To hold that oak-tree golden.
To me then, me destroyer
Of swan-mead’s flame, unneedful
This looking on the dark-eyed,
This golden land’s beholding.”
Therewith they crossed the river, and Helga and Gunnlaug spake awhile together, and as the brothers crossed the river eastward back again, Helga stood and gazed long after Gunnlaug.
Then Gunnlaug looked back and sang:—
“Moon of linen-lapped one,
Leek-sea-bearing goddess,
Hawk-keen out of heaven
Shone all bright upon me;
But that eyelid’s moonbeam
Of gold-necklaced goddess
Her hath all undoing
Wrought, and me made nought of.”
CHAPTER XV. How Gunnlaug and Raven agreed to go East to Norway, to try the matter again.
Now after these things were gone by men rode home from the Thing, and Gunnlaug dwelt at home at Gilsbank.