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Updated: June 15, 2025
Now I called to Thormod, and his voice answered me from shoreward. "Here am I, Wulfric. How have you sped?" "Some of us are left, but no foemen," I answered. "Call your names," he said. And when we counted I had but sixteen left of my thirty, so heavy had been the fighting. Yet I thought that the Jomsburgers were two to our one as we fell on them, and of them was not one left.
So he had spent long hours in teaching me guard after guard, until I could not fail in them. "I am ready," I said, standing out before him. Thormod feinted once or twice, then he let fly at me, striking with the flat of his axe, as one does when in sport or practice. So I guarded that stroke as the jarl had taught me; and as I did so the men shouted: "Well done, Saxon!"
And, moreover, I wanted to see you." "That is good of you, Thormod, and glad am I to have you here, even if it is only for a day," I answered. "Moreover, I have a message to you from Halfden," he went on. Whereupon I asked him about the battle, and long we sat while he told me all. And Halfden's deeds had been great, but could not turn aside defeat. So he ended.
In those days was at its height the waxing of the foster-brothers, Thorgeir Havarson and Thormod Coalbrowskald; they had a boat and went therein far and wide, and were not thought men of much even-dealing. It chanced one summer that Thorgils Makson found a whale on the common drift-lands, and forthwith he and his folk set about cutting it up.
Thormod was his name, and I knew presently that he was Halfden's foster father, and the real captain of the ship while Halfden led the fighting men. "Food first and talk after," quoth this Thormod, and we fell to. So when we had finished, and sat with ale horns only before us, Halfden said: "I have sought tidings of my father from the day when he was lost until this.
Now Thormod and I went back to the hall, and in the courtyard stood a black horse, foam covered, and with deeply-spurred sides. It was Ingvar's. And when we came to the porch, the axe still stuck in the timbers overhead, and the Jomsburg chief's body lay where I had cast him but in the doorway, thin and white as a ghost, stood Ingvar the king, looking on these things.
So Onund and his party returned to the Southern Islands, where they met many of their friends. There was a man named Ofeig, nicknamed Grettir. He was the son of Einar, the son of Olvir the Babyman. He was a brother of Oleif the Broad, the father of Thormod Shaft. Another son of Olvir was named Steinolf, the father of Una, whom Thorbjorn the Salmon-man married.
But Thormod, swinging his sword, cut off his hand; and it is said Kimbe behaved no better over his wound than those he had been blaming. Then Thormod went into the barn; and after he had sung his song there in praise of his dead king, he went into an inner room, where was a fire, and water warming, and a handsome girl binding up men's wounds.
"Ho!" said Thormod; "hold your peace for a while, and we will see what sort of pupil he had." Then he rose up and took his axe, and bade me take Halfden's, which I did, not over willingly maybe, while Halfden stood by, smiling. "I will not harm you," said Thormod shortly, seeing that I was not over eager. "See here!"
"Not much to signify," says Thormod. Kimbe sees the gold ring, and says, "Thou art a King's man: give me thy gold ring, and I will hide thee." Thormod replies, "Take the ring if thou canst get it; I HAVE LOST THAT WHICH IS MORE WORTH."
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