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When he came there, his mother Saevuna greeted him as one risen from the dead, and hung about his neck. Then he told her all that had come to pass, and she thought it a marvellous story, and sorrowed that Thorgrimur, her husband, was not alive to know it. But Eric mused a while, and spoke. "Mother," he said, "now my uncle Thorod of Greenfell is dead, and his daughter, my cousin Unna, has no home.
Now, since Thorgrimur Iron-Toe's death, his housewife, Saevuna, Eric's mother, had grown dim of sight, and, though she peered and peered again from her seat in the ingle nook, she could not see the face of her son. "What ails thee, Eric, that thou sittest so silent? Was not the meat, then, to thy mind at supper?" "Yes, mother, the meat was well enough, though a little undersmoked."
These two fair women saw the light in the self-same hour. But Eric Brighteyes was their elder by five years. The father of Eric was Thorgrimur Iron-Toe. Still, he slew the Baresark, standing on one leg and leaning against a rock, and for that deed people honoured him much. Thorgrimur was a wealthy yeoman, slow to wrath, just, and rich in friends.
Men held him in honour and spoke well of him, though as yet he had done no deeds, but lived at home on Coldback, managing the farm, for now Thorgrimur Iron-Toe, his father, was dead. But women loved him much, and that was his bane for of all women he loved but one, Gudruda the Fair, Asmund's daughter.
Then he found the byrnie which his father Thorgrimur had stripped, together with the helm, from that Baresark who cut off his leg and this was a good piece, forged of the Welshmen and he put it on his breast, and taking a stout shield of bull's hide studded with nails, rode away with one thrall, the strong carle named Jon.
And Thorgrimur named him Eric Brighteyes. Now, Coldback is but an hour's ride from Middalhof, and it chanced, in after years, that Thorgrimur went up to Middalhof, to keep the Yule feast and worship in the Temple, for he was in the priesthood of Asmund Asmundson, bringing the boy Eric with him.
"This wealthy farmer holds the good gold of little worth. It is foolish to take fish to the sea, my father," sneered Björn. "Nay, Björn, not so," Eric answered: "but, as thou sayest, I am but a farmer, and since my father, Thorgrimur Iron-Toe, died things have not gone too well on Ran River. But at the least I am a free man, and I will take no gifts that I cannot repay worth for worth.
Now, it must be told that, five years before the day of the death of Gudruda the Gentle, Saevuna, the wife of Thorgrimur Iron-Toe, gave birth to a son, at Coldback in the Marsh, on Ran River, and when his father came to look upon the child he called out aloud: "Here we have a wondrous bairn, for his hair is yellow like gold and his eyes shine bright as stars."
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