21. * * *
Was she readier for war than with wooer to dally,
or on bench to sit as wedded bride.”
When Angantýr heard this he stroked his beard and was silent for a long time. At last he said:
22. “Wast unbrotherly dealt with, my brave sister!
(Now have fallen the fighters who fared with you.)33
Full many the men when mead we drank,—
have I fewer followers when I fain would have more.
23. “In all my host no hero see I,
though I should beg him and buy him with rings,
who would raise the war-shield and ride for me
to the Hunnish host to harbinger war.
Gizur the Old said:
24. “Not a single silverling seek I of thee,
nor of glistening gold guerdon crave I;
yet shall I ride and raise the war-shield,
and to Hunnish hosts herald battle.”
It was King Heithrek’s law, that if a hostile army was in the land and the king of the land challenged them to a pitched battle
and appointed the battle field, then those vikings durst not harry before battle was tried between them. Gizur then armed himself
with good weapons and leaped on his horse as p. 44 though he were a young man, and said to the king:34
25.* “To the Huns where shall I herald battle?”
[33. Freely supplied by the translator after the suggestion of the prose.
34. The last sentence of the prose no doubt paraphrases the lost portion of this stanza.
* This is an orphan paragraph in Hollander it has been numbered as stanza 25 to conform with the Old Norse.]
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21. Léttari gerðisk hon at böð en við biðil ræða
eða í bekk at fara at brúðar gangi."
Angantýr konungr, þá er hann heyrði þetta, brá hann grönum ok varð seint til orða ok mælti þetta um síðir:
22. "Óbróðurliga vartu leikin, in ágæta systir!"
Ok síðan leit hann yfir hirðina, ok var ekki margt liðs með honum. Hann kvað þá:
"Mjök várum vér margir, er vér mjöð drukkum,
nú erum vér færi, er vér fleiri skyldum.
23. Sé ek eigi mann í mínu liði,
þótt ek biðja ok baugum kaupa,
er muni ríða ok rönd bera
ok þeira Húna herlið finna."
Gizurr gamli sagði:
24. "Ek mun þik einkis eyris krefja
né skjallanda skarfs ór gulli;
þó mun ek ríða ok rönd bera,
Húna þjóðum herstaf bjóða."
.... Gizurr herklæddist með góðum hervápnum ok hljóp á hest sinn, sem ungr væri. Þá mælti hann til konungs:
25. "Hvar skal ek Húnum hervíg kenna?"
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