“At Coldback,” he answered.

“To see Unna, Eric’s cousin, perchance?”

“That is so.”

“What is Unna to thee, then, lord?”

“This much, that after hay-harvest she will be my wife, and that is ill news for thee, Groa.”

Now Groa turned and grasped fiercely at the air with her thin hands.  Her eyes started out, foam was on her lips, and she shook in her fury like a birch-tree in the wind, looking so evil that Asmund drew back a little way, saying: 

“Now a veil is lifted from thee and I see thee as thou art.  Thou hast cast a glamour over me these many years, Groa, and it is gone.”

“Mayhap, Asmund Asmundson—­mayhap, thou knowest me; but I tell thee that thou shalt see me in a worse guise before thou weddest Unna.  What! have I borne the greatest shame, lying by thy side these many years, and shall I live to see a rival, young and fair, creep into my place with honour?  That I will not while runes have power and spells can conjure the evil thing upon thee.  I call down ruin on thee and thine—­yea and on Brighteyes also, for he has brought this thing to pass.  Death take ye all!  May thy blood no longer run in mortal veins anywhere on the earth!  Go down to Hela, Asmund, and be forgotten!” and she began to mutter runes swiftly.

Now Asmund turned white with wrath.  “Cease thy evil talk,” he said, “or thou shalt be hurled as a witch into Goldfoss pool.”

“Into Goldfoss pool?—­yea, there I may lie.  I see it!—­I seem to see this shape of mine rolling where the waters boil fiercest—­but thine eyes shall never see it! Thy eyes are shut, and shut are the eyes of Unna, for ye have gone before!—­I do but follow after,” and thrice Groa shrieked aloud, throwing up her arms, then fell foaming on the sanded floor.

“An evil woman and a fey!” said Asmund as he called people to her.  “It had been better for me if I had never seen her dark face.”

Now it is to be told that Groa lay beside herself for ten full days, and Swanhild nursed her.  Then she found her sense again, and craved to see Asmund, and spoke thus to him: 

“It seems to me, lord, if indeed it be aught but a vision of my dreams, that before this sickness struck me I spoke mad and angry words against thee, because thou hast plighted troth to Unna, Thorod’s daughter.”

“That is so, in truth,” said Asmund.

“I have to say this, then, lord:  that most humbly I crave thy pardon for my ill words, and ask thee to put them away from thy mind.  Sore heart makes sour speech, and thou knowest well that, howsoever great my faults, at least I have always loved thee and laboured for thee, and methinks that in some fashion thy fortunes are the debtor to my wisdom.  Therefore when my ears heard that thou hadst of a truth put me away, and that another woman comes an honoured wife to rule in Middalhof, my tongue forgot its courtesy, and I spoke words that are of all words the farthest