Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 4, 1893.djvu/238

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The Oldest Icelandic Folk-lore.

before he had gone far, all the fell came rushing down, burying under it a boar and a bull that he had. (Hence Skridudal = Landslip-dale.) (4. 3.)

G.—Most of the settlers were pretty quiet after death, but some of them, like Asolf, were not quite at peace. Other two are mentioned besides him.

40. Asmund was buried in Asmund's-grave, laid in a ship, and his thrall beside him. A man as he went past heard this verse repeated in his grave-mound:

"Alone I dwell in the stone-heap,
In the sea-raven's stem-room;
No throng on the deck is standing
Of men: I dwell on the sea-steed.
Room for the brave one is better
(I know how to steer the wave-deer;
Long shall that be remembered
By men) than a bad companion."

Then they searched the mound, and took the thrall out of the ship. (2. 6.)

41. [Thorkell farserkr, who had supernatural strength (was rammaukinn). He crossed half a sea-mile on an old gelding.] Th. was buried in the farmyard in Hvalseyfirth (in Greenland), and has always haunted the homestead. (2. 14.)

H.—In this the croaking of a raven is an omen of death.

42. One morning a raven lighted on the light-hole at Brekka and croaked loudly. Hromund said:

"Out in the dawn of morning
Croaking I hear the black-feathered
Swan of the wound-thorn's sweat-drops
(Prey wakens the wary-minded).
So came the war-hawk croaking
Of old when the princes of people
Were death-doomed, and birds of Odin
Foretold the boding of battle."

Thorbjörn said:

"The mew of the war-heap's billow
Cries with hail besprinkled
When it comes to seek the corpse-sea