e had it. But who wants a good wife? Who does not?"

Gudrid said, "To be good is the least I can do. It seems very easy.
But to be happy is difficult."

"I never found it so," said old Heriolf. And so they parted, she
whither Fate beckoned her, and he to go fishing.

X

Eric Red, who lived at Brattalithe in Ericsfrith, had been a notable
man all his life, and a man of mettle. In Earl Hakon's day in Norway
he had been a Viking, had made a few friends and many enemies; then he
had gone out to Iceland and founded a family in the west country, which
might have endured to this day if it had not been for his headstrong
way of doing. But, as before, he made more enemies than friends; and
when he killed the son of Thorgest the Old, and was pursued for the
slaughter at the Thing, he found that there was more feeling against
him than he had reckoned on, and that Iceland could not hold him much
longer. By what shifts a ship was hidden for him among the islands,
and how his friends got him down by night, and rowed him aboard, and
how he slipped his cable and escaped pursuit, cannot be told here.
Enough to say that he found his way to Greenland, and chose out a fair
haven for himself and his company. When he was settled in, and had his
town of Ericshaven marked out, and his house built, he felt himself
like a king and cast about for alliances. He sent out messengers to
Iceland calling upon all men who had been his friends to rally about
him. Many came, and by the time his friend Thorbeorn had decided to
join him there was a strong settlement at Ericshaven.

Eric was now grown old, and was very fat. He thought himself that his
work was over, but had hopes to see it continued in his sons. He had
three sons by his wife Theodhild; the eldest was Leif, who was abroad
at this time, supposed to be in Orkney. Leif was a fine tall man who
took after his mother, and had none of Eric's fiery colour; the second
son was Thorstan, who was as red as a fox; the third was Thorwald, and
resembled Leif, but was of slighter build. Then there was a
tempestuous daughter, named Freydis, a strongly made, fierce girl, who
was fated to do terrible things. She was married to one of Eric's
vassals, a man called Thorward of Garth, but treated him with great
contempt and did just what she pleased. As for Theodhild, Eric's wife,
she was a Christian at this time, and had taken herself out of
Brattalithe for religion's sake. She had buil