<<<Prev Next>>>
Page 368 Chapter

Again, once when Egil went to the fire to warm himself, a man asked him whether his feet were cold,
and warned him not to put them too near the fire.
'That shall be so,' said Egil; 'but 'tis not easy steering my feet now that I cannot see;
a very dismal thing is blindness.'
Then Egil sang:

'Lonely I lie,
And think it long,
Carle worn with eld
From kings' courts exiled.
Feet twain have I,
Frosty and cold,
Bedfellows needing
Blaze of fire.'

In the later days of Hacon the Great
Egil Skallagrim's son
was in his ninth decade of years,
and save for his blindness was a hale and hearty man.
One summer, when men made ready to go to the Thing,
Egil asked Grim that he might ride with him to the Thing. Grim was slow to grant this.
And when Grim and Thordis talked together, Grim told her what Egil had asked.
'I would like you,' said he, 'to find out what lies under this request.'
Thordis then went to talk with Egil her uncle: it was Egil's chief pleasure to talk to her.
And when she met him she asked: 'Is it true, uncle, that you wish to ride to the Thing?
I want you to tell me what plan you have in this?' 'I will tell you,' said he, 'what I have thought of.
I mean to take with me to the Thing two chests that king Athelstan gave me, each of which is full of English silver.
I mean to have these chests carried to the Hill of Laws just when it is most crowded.
Then I mean to sow broadcast the silver, and I shall be surprized if all share it fairly between them.
Kicks, I fancy, there will be and blows; nay, it may end in a general fight of all the assembled Thing.'
Thordis said: 'A famous plan, methinks, is this, and it will be remembered so long as Iceland is inhabited.'
After this Thordis went to speak with Grim and told him Egil's plan.
'That shall never be,' said he, 'that he carry this out, such monstrous folly.'
And when Egil came to speak with Grim of their going to the Thing, Grim talked him out of it all;
and Egil sat at home during the Thing. But he did not like it, and he wore a frowning look.

(Thordis)