Haf (coming in again).—­Now your horse is provided with ice-spurs.  Make haste; I see men riding this way. (LADY HELGA and HAF depart.)

Jorun (throwing up her hands in dismay).—­And to-night the Peace of God is at an end!  Holy mother of God!  Rather extinguish the sun than let my husband be taken from me and put to death.  Rather extinguish the sun than let this war continue.  The earth does not deserve to exist when no one obeys the command of love and peace.

Brand (enters).—­You are praying?

Jorun.—­Lady Helga departed but this moment; she said to me that her husband had promised her the life of a man in this feud, and that she intended to choose yours.

Brand.—­It is altogether uncertain as yet whether kinsman Kolbein will get power over my life.

Jorun.—­Hjalti, the bishop’s son, will not come to effect a settlement between you.

Brand.—­I am not so sure whether we shall need him.  Broddi has two hundred men, and if Deacon Sigurd and Helgi Skaftason manage to get any men it is likely that we shall have a greater host than kinsman Kolbein.  (SIGURD, deacon, enters.  BRAND goes to meet him.) You come late, deacon!

Sigurd.—­I have been going about asking for help, as you bade me, and I may as well say in few words that no one will take up arms for you, excepting only your tenants, if you mean to begin hostilities against Kolbein the Young.

Brand.—­That had I not expected.

Sigurd.—­People are saying that the district is growing poor through warfare, that brothers, fathers, or sons lie buried on battlefields in all directions, and that they want to know where to look for their bones before more men are sent to their death.

Brand.—­I have not been the cause of warring hitherto, and these same men will take to their arms by the hundreds, whenever Kolbein the Young summons them, and yet half of the lands he now rules are really mine.

Sigurd.—­That I told them also; but I cannot tell you what they answered thereupon!

Brand.—­You certainly must!

Sigurd.—­They said that Kolbein had ever been victorious in war, but you never.

Brand (gloomy).—­It is true, I have not been victorious!

(HELGI SKAFTASON enters.  BRAND goes to meet him.)

Brand.—­What tidings have you from, the West?

Helgi (leaning wearily on his axe).—­The weather has been very bad—­

Brand.—­I know that!  I know that!

Helgi.—­I found the men on guard in the West.  When I came to the first of them, the messengers of Lady Helga were there.  Both they and the guards raised a great outcry against me, and I owe it to my horse and the storm that I escaped with my life.  At the second and the third post it went the same way.