youngling;
Nor for nought so hight I;
Now is time to show it!"

"Now I will make an offer good in law," says Gunnlaug; "that thou either
pay me my money, or else that thou go on holm with me in three nights'
space."

Then laughed the viking, and said, "Before thee none have come to that,
to call me to holm, despite of all the ruin that many a man has had to
take at my hands. Well, I am ready to go."

Thereon they parted for that time.

Gunnlaug told the king what had befallen; and he said, "Now, indeed,
have things taken a right hopeless turn; for this man's eyes can dull
any weapon. But thou shalt follow my rede; here is a sword I will
give thee--with that thou shalt fight, but before the battle show him
another."

Gunnlaug thanked the king well therefor.

Now when they were ready for the holm, Thororm asked what sort of a
sword it was that he had. Gunnlaug unsheathed it and showed him, but
had a loop round the handle of the king's sword, and slipped it over
his hand; the bearserk looked on the sword, and said, "I fear not that
sword."

But now he dealt a blow on Gunnlaug with his sword, and cut off from him
nigh all his shield; Gunnlaug smote in turn with the king's gift; the
bearserk stood shieldless before him, thinking he had the same weapon he
had shown him, but Gunnlaug smote him his deathblow then and there.

The king thanked him for this work, and he got much fame therefor, both
in England and far and wide elsewhere.

In the spring, when ships sailed from land to land, Gunnlaug prayed King
Ethelred for leave to sail somewhither; the king asks what he was about
then. Gunnlaug said, "I would fulfil what I have given my word to do,"
and sang this stave withal:--

"My ways must I be wending
Three kings' walls to see yet,
And earls twain, as I promised
Erewhile to land-sharers.
Neither will I wend me
Back, the worms'-bed lacking,
By war-lord's son, the wealth-free,
For work done gift well given."

"So be it, then, skald," said the king, and withal he gave him a ring
that weighed six ounces; "but," said he, "thou shalt give me thy word to
come back next autumn, for I will not let thee go altogether, because of
thy great prowess."

CHAPTER VIII. Of Gunnlaug in Ireland.

Thereafter Gunnlaug sailed from England with chapmen north to Dublin. In
those days King Sigtrygg Silky-beard, son of Kin