About Hoskuld's Sons

The Laxdaela Saga, tr. by Muriel Press, [1899], at sacred-texts.com

Chapter XXV: About Hoskuld's Sons

Now Hoskuld's sons shall be told about. Thorleik, Hoskuld's son, had been a great seafarer, and taken service with men in lordly station when he was on his merchant voyages before he settled down as a householder, and a man of mark he was thought to be. He had also been on Viking raids, and given good account of himself by reason of his courage. Bard, Hoskuld's son, had also been a seafarer, and was well accounted of wherever he went, for he was the best of brave men and true, and a man of moderation in all things. Bard married a Broad-firth woman, named Astrid, who came of a good stock. Bard's son was named Thorarin, and his daughter Gudney, who married Hall, the son of Fight Styr, and from them are descended many great families. Hrut, Herjolf's son, gave a thrall of his named Hrolf, his freedom, and with it a certain amount of money, and a dwelling-place where his land joined with Hoskuld's. And it lay so near the landmark that Hrut's people had made a mistake in the matter, and settled the freedman down on the land belonging to Hoskuld. He soon gained there much wealth. Hoskuld took it very much to heart that Hrut should have placed his freedman right up against his ear, and bade the freedman pay him money for the lands he lived on "for it is mine own."

The freedman went to Hrut and told him all they had spoken together. Hrut bade him give no heed, and pay no money to Hoskuld. "For I do 'not know," he said, "to which of us the land belonged."

So the freedman went home, and goes on with his household just as before. A little later, Thorleik, Hoskuld's son, went at the advice of his father to the dwelling of the freedman and took him and killed him, and Thorleik claimed as his and his father's own all the money the freedman had made. Hrut heard this, and he and his sons liked it very ill. They were most of them grown up, and the band of kinsmen was deemed a most forbidding one to grapple with. fell back on the law as to how this ought to turn out, and when the matter was searched into by lawyers, Hrut and his son stood at but little advantage, for it was held a matter of great weight that Hrut had set the freedman down without leave on Hoskuld's land, where he had made money, Thorleik having slain the man within his and his father's own lands. Hrut took his lot very much to heart; but things remained quiet. After that Thorleik had a homestead built on the boundary of Hrut and Hoskuld's lands, and it was called Combness. There Thorleik lived for a while, as has been told before. Thorleik™ begat a son of his wife. The boy was sprinkled with water and called Bolli. He was at an early age a very promising man.