Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 1.djvu/189

CHAP. VIII Njal rode to his home, while Gunnar's enemies gathered and moved secretly to his house. His hound, struck down with an axe, gives a great howl and expires. Gunnar awoke in his hall, and said: "Thou hast been sorely treated, Sam, my fosterling, and this warning is so meant that our two deaths will not be far apart." Single-handed, the beset chieftain maintains himself within, killing two of his enemies and wounding eight. At last, wounded, and with his bow-string cut, he turns to his wife Hallgerda: "Give me two locks of thy hair, and do thou and my mother twist them into a bowstring for me."

"Does aught lie on it?" she says.

"My life lies on it," he said; "for they will never come to close quarters with me if I can keep them off with my bow."

"Well," she says, "now I will call to thy mind that slap on the face which thou gavest me; and I care never a whit whether thou boldest out a long while or a short."

Then Gunnar sang a stave, and said, "Every one has something to boast of, and I will ask thee no more for this." He fought on till spent with wounds, and at last they killed him.

Here the Njála may be left with its good men and true and its evil plotters, all so differently shown. It has still to tell the story and fate of Njal's unbending sons, of Njal himself and his high-tempered dame, who will abide with her spouse in their burning house, which enemies have surrounded and set on fire to destroy those sons. Njal himself was offered safety if he would come out, but he would not.

Perhaps we have been beguiled by their unique literary qualities into dwelling overlong upon the Sagas. These Norse compositions belong to the Middle Ages only in time; for they were uninfluenced either by Christianity or the antique culture, the formative elements of mediaeval development. They are interesting in their aloofness, and also important for our mediaeval theme, because they were the ultimate as well as the most admirable expression of the native Teutonic genius as yet integral, but destined to have mighty part in the composite course of mediaeval growth.