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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 a man had to think up something to say for himself, the way they all harped on fox-hunting: Bjarni of Fell caught a white vixen night before last, or Einar of Brekka caught a brown dog-fox yesterday. Or if a man stepped over to a neighbour's for a moment: Any hunting? Anyone shot a fox? Our Gisli here caught a grayish brown one last evening. Such incessant twaddle! Arni's breath came short.
Gudrid received it in silence, but put her hand up and laid it over the token which fluttered in her bosom. "My pretty one," said Halldis, "I blame myself." "No, no," Gudrid said, "you must not do that. Nobody is at fault." But Halldis thought Einar had been much to blame. She would have comforted Gudrid and made much of her if she had been able but Gudrid would not have that.
It was true, Einar had told them of it, and of his friend Biorn who had found his father out there after seven weeks at sea. "And you go out there without a husband?" said Halldis, with sympathy ready and waiting in her kindly eyes. Gudrid said, "Why not? It is not I who have the wedding of myself." She would not meet Halldis half-way, nor any part of the way. Halldis felt the chill.
Maybe the spirit of the sword I had won got hold of me, as they say will happen; for I had waxed restless of late, and I had tried to keep it from Einar. Now I hated myself for it, seeing at hand what I had longed for. So he went north to meet Harald, and of our parting I will not say more.
But Gudrid held Einar with the most beautiful pair of eyes in Iceland. "And what country was it that Biorn found first?" she asked. Einar said, "I can't tell you. He must have drifted south of Greenland, south and by west. I believe that he crossed the western ocean, which no man has ever yet done. It is a notable deed but a thousand pities that he made no landing."
It was the time of great fires, and long festivals within-doors; but Thorbeorn's hall remained empty. In the face of such manifest misery the love she had given to Einar and received from him shone far off like a winter star, which had no warmth for the blood. She used to look fondly at her token and try to make herself believe that his strong teeth had bitten the deep gauffres into its edge.
Driving through the country, he noticed which farms had good crops; he heard the news about the restless farmer who was "thinking about selling out here and pulling his freight for Alberta." He asked the veterinarian about the value of different breeds of stock; he inquired of Lyman Cass whether or not Einar Gyseldson really had had a yield of forty bushels of wheat to the acre.
She was a beautiful maiden and was considered an excellent match. Einar invited Grettir to stay over Yule, and he accepted. It was no uncommon thing throughout Norway that robbers and other ruffians came down from the forest and challenged men to fight for their women, or carried off their property with violence if there was not sufficient force in the house to protect them.
Those Norsemen said they would gladly follow the son of King Vemund and foster son of Einar the jarl; and so we led the strange fleet, and held on eastward with a light breeze all that day, making little way when the tide turned, and held back by the slower vessels.
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