to the king and pleaded his case, and begged leave to go, and said it
mattered a great deal to him, that they should not have to unship
their cargo again. The king spake, and then he was wroth: "It is well
for the son of a sacrificer to be where he likes it worst." So
Sverling went no whither. That winter nothing to tell of befell. The
next summer the king sent Gizor and Hjalti Skeggjason to Iceland to
preach the faith anew, and kept four men back as hostages Kjartan
Olafson, Halldor, the son of Gudmund the Mighty, Kolbein, son of Thord
the priest of Frey, and Sverling, son of Runolf of Dale. [Sidenote: Of
Ingibjorg the king's sister] Bolli made up his mind to journey with
Gizor and Hjalti, and went to Kjartan, his kinsman, and said, "I am
now ready to depart; I should wait for you through the next winter, if
next summer you were more free to go away than you are now. But I
cannot help thinking that the king will on no account let you go free.
I also take it to be the truth that you yourself call to mind but few
of the things that afford pastime in Iceland when you sit talking to
Ingibjorg, the king's sister." She was at the court of King Olaf, and
the most beautiful of all the women who were at that time in the land.
Kjartan said, "Do not say such things, but bear my greeting to both my
kinsfolk and friends."




CHAP. XLII

Bolli makes love to Gudrun, A.D. 1000


After that Kjartan and Bolli parted, and Gizor and Hjalti sailed from