Then spoke Thorgerdr:
'What counsel shall we take now?
This our purpose is defeated.
Now I would fain, father,
that we should lengthen our lives,
so that you may compose
a funeral poem on Bodvar,
and I will grave it on a wooden roller;
after that we can die, if we like.
Hardly, I think, can Thorstein
your son compose a poem on Bodvar;
but it were unseemly that he should
not have funeral rites.
Though I do not think that we two shall sit at
the drinking when the funeral feast is held.'
Egil said that it was not to be expected
that he could now compose,
though he were to attempt it.
'However, I will try this,' said he.
Egil had had another son named Gunnar,
who had died a short time before.
So then Egil began the poem, and this is the beginning.