Then An went into the dairy hard and swift, and held his shield over his head, turning forward the narrower part of it.  Bolli dealt him a blow with Footbiter, and cut off the tail-end of the shield, and clove An through the head down to the shoulder, and forthwith he gat his death.  Then Lambi went in; he held his shield before him, and a drawn sword in his hand.  In the nick of time Bolli pulled Footbiter out of the wound, whereat his shield veered aside so as to lay him open to attack.  So Lambi made a thrust at him in the thigh, and a great wound that was.  Bolli hewed in return, and struck Lambi’s shoulder, and the sword flew down along the side of him, and he was rendered forthwith unfit to fight, and never after that time for the rest of his life was his arm any more use to him. [Sidenote:  Bolli’s death] At this brunt Helgi, the son of Hardbien, rushed in with a spear, the head of which was an ell long, and the shaft bound with iron.  When Bolli saw that he cast away his sword, and took his shield in both hands, and went towards the dairy door to meet Helgi.  Helgi thrust at Bolli with the spear right through the shield and through him.  Now Bolli leaned up against the dairy wall, and the men rushed into the dairy, Halldor and his brothers, to wit, and Thorgerd went into the dairy as well.  Then spoke Bolli, “Now it is safe, brothers, to come nearer than hitherto you have done,” and said he weened that defence now would be but short.  Thorgerd answered his speech, and said there was no need to shrink from dealing unflinchingly with Bolli, and bade them “walk between head and trunk.”  Bolli stood still against the dairy wall, and held tight to him his kirtle lest his inside should come out.  Then Steinthor Olafson leapt at Bolli, and hewed at his neck with a large axe just above his shoulders, and forthwith his head flew off.  Thorgerd bade him “hale enjoy hands,” and said that Gudrun would have now a while a red hair to trim for Bolli. [Sidenote:  Gudrun’s courage] After that they went out of the dairy.  Gudrun now came up from the brook, and spoke to Halldor, and asked for tidings of what had befallen in their dealings with Bolli.  They told her all that had happened.  Gudrun was dressed in a kirtle of “ram"-stuff,[7] and a tight-fitting woven bodice, a high bent coif on her head, and she had tied a scarf round her with dark-blue stripes, and fringed at the ends.  Helgi Hardbienson went up to Gudrun, and caught hold of the scarf end, and wiped the blood off the spear with it, the same spear with which he had thrust Bolli through.  Gudrun glanced at him and smiled slightly.  Then Halldor said, “That was blackguardly and gruesomely done.”  Helgi bade him not be angry about it, “For I am minded to think that under this scarf end abides undoer of my life.”  Then they took their horses and rode away.  Gudrun went along with them talking with them for a while, and then she turned back.

[Footnote 7:  Unknown what stuff.]

CHAP.  LVI