Page:The Story of Egil Skallagrimsson.djvu/72

Rh come to Iceland, and things so turn out that — unlikely as it may seem — I be there first, then he shall choose him a homestead as near as may be to where I have come ashore.'

Shortly after this Kveldulf died.

His shipmates did as he had bidden them do; they laid him in a coffin, and shot it overboard. There was a man named Grim, son of Thorir Kettlesson Keel-fare, of noble kin and wealthy. He was in Kveldulf's ship; he had been an old friend of both father and son, and a companion both of them and of Thorolf, for which reason he had incurred the king's anger. He now took command of the ship after Kveldulf was dead.

But when they were come to Iceland, approaching the land from the south, they sailed westwards along the coast, because they had heard that Ingolf had settled there. But coming over against Reykja-ness, and seeing the firth open before them, they steered both ships into the firth.

And now the wind came on to blow hard, with much rain and mist. Thus the ships were parted.

Grim the Halogalander and his crew sailed in up the Borgar Firth past all the skerries; then they cast anchor till the wind fell and the weather cleared. They waited for the flood-tide, and then took their ship up into a river-mouth; it is called Gufu-river. They drew the ship up this river as far as it could go; then unshipped the cargo, and remained there for the first winter. They explored the land along the sea both inwards and outwards, and they had not gone far before they found Kveldulf's coffin cast up in a creek. They carried the coffin to the ness hard by, set it down there, and raised thereover a pile of stones.

KALLAGRIM came to land where a large ness ran out into the sea, and above the ness was a narrow isthmus; and there they put out their lading. That ness they called Ship-ness. Then Skallagrim spied out the