Now Gunnlaug and Helga would be always at the chess-playing together, and very soon each found favour with the other, as came to be proven well enough afterwards: they were very nigh of an age.
Helga was so fair, that men of lore say that she was the fairest woman of Iceland, then or since; her hair was so plenteous and long that it could cover her all over, and it was as fair as a band of gold; nor was there any so good to choose as Helga the Fair in all Burgfirth, and far and wide elsewhere.
Now one day, as men sat in the hall at Burg, Gunnlaug spake to Thorstein: “One thing in law there is which thou hast not taught me, and that is how to woo me a wife.”
Thorstein said, “That is but a small matter,” and therewith taught him how to go about it.
Then said Gunnlaug, “Now shalt thou try if I have understood all: I shall take thee by the hand and make as if I were wooing thy daughter Helga.”
“I see no need of that,” says Thorstein. Gunnlaug, however, groped then and there after his hand, and seizing it said, “Nay, grant me this though.”
“Do as thou wilt, then,” said Thorstein; “but be it known to all who are hereby that this shall be as if it had been unspoken, nor shall any guile follow herein.”
Then Gunnlaug named for himself witnesses, and betrothed Helga to him, and asked thereafter if it would stand good thus. Thorstein said that it was well; and those who were present were mightily pleased at all this.