man by the mast, who
was clad in a silken kirtle, and had a gilded helm, and his hair was
both fair and thick; that man had a spear inlaid with gold in his hand.

He asked, "Who have here such an uneven game?"

Helgi tells his name, and said that against them are Gritgard and
Snowcolf.

"But who are your captains?" he asks.

Helgi answered, "Bard the black, who lives, but the other, who is dead
and gone, was called Olaf".

"Are ye men from Iceland?" says he.

"Sure enough we are," Helgi answers.

He asked whose sons they were, and they told him, then he knew them and
said--

"Well known names have ye all, father and sons both."

"Who art thou?" asks Helgi.

"My name is Kari, and I am Solmund's son."

"Whence comest thou?" says Helgi.

"From the Southern Isles."

"Then thou art welcome," says Helgi, "if thou wilt give us a little
help."

"I'll give ye all the help ye need," says Kari; "but what do ye ask?"

"To fall on them," says Helgi.

Kari says that so it shall be. So they pulled up to them, and then the
battle began the second time; but when they had fought a little while,
Kari springs up on Snowcolf's ship; he turns to meet him and smites at
him with his sword. Kari leaps nimbly backwards over a beam that lay
athwart the ship, and Snowcolf smote the beam so that both edges of the
sword were hidden. Then Kari smites at him, and the sword fell on his
shoulder, and the stroke was so mighty that he cleft in twain shoulder,
arm, and all, and Snowcolf got his death there and then. Gritgard hurled
a spear at Kari, but Kari saw it and sprang up aloft, and the spear
missed him. Just then Helgi and Grim came up both to meet Kari, and
Helgi springs on Gritgard and thrusts his spear through him, and that
was his death blow; after that they went round the whole ship on both
boards, and then men begged for mercy. So they gave them all peace, but
took all their goods. After that they ran all the ships out under the
islands.

CHAPTER LXXXIV.

OF EARL SIGURD.

Sigurd was the name of an earl who ruled over the Orkneys; he was the
son of Hlodver, the son of Thorfinn the scull-splitter, the son of
Turf-Einar, the son of Rognvald, Earl of M[oe]ren, the son of Eystein
the noisy. Kari was one of Earl Sigurd's body-guard, and had just been
gathering scatts in the Southern Isles from Earl Gilli. Now Kari asks
them to go to Hrossey,[35] and said the Earl would take to them well.
They agreed to that, and w