Cloak and Staff

During the spring Thorgils prepared the case for the Althing. The Vatnsdal people were thick on the ground, and so were their opponents. Thorgils rode to the Thing with a large troop of men. Thorkel also rode there with his kinsmen. Thordis the Prophetess rode with them, and had a booth for herself and her men. Gudmund then took up the case. The Vatnsdal men offered settlement terms, but Gudmund and his men would accept nothing short of outlawry.

Thororm met with Thordis and discussed the matter with her, because she was very wise and could see into the future and was thus chosen to act in major cases.

She then said, ‘Thorkel must come here to my booth and we will see what happens.’

Thorkel did so.

Thordis said to Thororm, ‘Go and offer terms to Gudmund, and suggest that I arbitrate the case.’

Thorkel gave Thordis two hundred of silver. Thororm suggested that Thordis should decide the case, but Gudmund refused and said that he had no wish to accept monetary compensation.

Thordis said, ‘I cannot say that I am obliged to Gudmund.’

She then said to Thorkel, ‘Go now in my black cloak and carry in your hand the staff which is called Hognud; would you dare to go among Gudmund’s men dressed in this way?’

He said that at her bidding he would dare to do this. She said, ‘Let us risk it, then. You will go to Gudmund and strike him three times on his left cheek with the staff; it does not seem to me that you are due for an early death, and I think that this may work.’

Thorkel came among Gudmund’s men and no one saw him. He approached Gudmund and was able to bring about what he had been told to do.
Now the prosecution of the suit was held up, and the case was delayed.

Thorgils said, ‘Why is the case not proceeding?’

Gudmund said that it would soon proceed, but it did not, and the delay was such that the case became null and void for prosecution.
Thordis met the Vatnsdal men and told them to go to the court and offer money as compensation for the man, ‘and it may be that they will accept it, and thus bring the case to a close’.

This they did; they went to the court, met Gudmund, and offered terms and monetary compensation.

Gudmund answered, ‘I do not know what you are willing to offer but I place much store on the fact that in this case the person who was killed had by his own words made himself no longer inviolable.’

They said that they wished to make the offer for his sake, and they asked him to stipulate the amount.

When he realized how the case stood, and that it could not be prosecuted in law, then he accepted self-judgement from Thororm – he could stipulate whatever sum he wished, but banishment abroad and outlawry in the region were excluded. They agreed with a handshake to drop the case. Then Thordis sent Thorkel to Gudmund a second time to have the staff strike his right cheek; and he saw to this. Then Gudmund recovered his memory and thought it strange that it had ever left him.

Gudmund stipulated a hundred of silver for the killing of Glaedir, and the counter-charge collapsed and Thororm and Thordis paid over all the money, and, fully reconciled, they parted company. Thorkel went home to Spakonufell with Thordis.

Thorgils said to Gudmund, ‘Why did you change your mind so suddenly about the case today?’

Gudmund replied, ‘Because I could not think of a single word to say, and therefore I dried up; but it may be that I was pulling on a rope against a strong man.’

They then went home from the assembly.


- The Saga of the People of Vatnsdal (Vatnsdæla saga), Chapter 44