Custom and Belief in Icelandic Sagas. 425
would have run mad with the wild beasts, if they had not seen her before she saw them.
3. (^Ib) Helga said she would prevent the combatants
from going to a duel. There was great frost and snow.
4. {Waterdale, 955.) Groa invited Thorstein to her
house. He was three times warned in a dream not to go. A shepherd saw her go widdershins round the house after sunset, and say " It is difficult to withstand the luck of Ingimund's sons." Then she went up on the fell and waved a" handkerchief with much gold tied up in it, and said " Now let what is prepared go." There was a landslip on the farm.
5. {Har^ar Saga, 959.) Thorbjorg Katla knew that a
ship was come. Then she sought her hood, and waved it over her head, and great darkness came over Geir and his men.
6. {Gisla Saga, 965.) AuSbjorg went several times
widdershins round the house, and scented in all quarters and lifted her nostrils. The Aveather changed, and there was a snowstorm, and thaw, and a snowslip on Berg's farm. It was the death of twelve men, and the mark is there to this day.
7. {Njals Saga, 970.) Svan waved a goatskin over his
head to cause mist.
8. {Waterdale Saga, 981.) To stop a storm, Styrfinn
told the men to make a ring hand in hand ; then he went thrice widdershins, and spoke Irish, and bade them say " yes " to him ; then he waved a hand- kerchief to the fell, and the storm ceased.
9. {NJdla, 998.) Galdra-HeSinn (HeSinn of the Spells)
held a sacrifice to bring disaster on the missionary Thangbrand. The earth swallowed Thangbrand's horse, but he himself was saved.
