excepting only your tenants, if you mean to begin hostilities against
Kolbein the Young.

_Brand_.--That had I not expected.

_Sigurd_.--People are saying that the district is growing poor through
warfare, that brothers, fathers, or sons lie buried on battlefields in
all directions, and that they want to know where to look for their bones
before more men are sent to their death.

_Brand_.--I have not been the cause of warring hitherto, and these same
men will take to their arms by the hundreds, whenever Kolbein the Young
summons them, and yet half of the lands he now rules are really mine.

_Sigurd_.--That I told them also; but I cannot tell you what they
answered thereupon!

_Brand_.--You certainly must!

_Sigurd_.--They said that Kolbein had ever been victorious in war, but
you never.

_Brand_ (_gloomy_).--It is true, I have not been victorious!

(HELGI SKAFTASON _enters_. BRAND _goes to meet him_.)

_Brand_.--What tidings have you from, the West?

_Helgi_ (_leaning wearily on his axe_).--The weather has been very bad--