well on in years, and was very loth to fare away, for he saw that all
things the bonder had went to nought from not being watched.

Now after midwinter one morning the housewife fared to the byre to
milk the cows after the wonted time; by then was it broad daylight,
for none other than the neatherd would trust themselves out before
day; but he went out at dawn. She heard great cracking in the byre,
with bellowing and roaring; she ran back crying out, and said she knew
not what uncouth things were going on in the byre.

The bonder went out and came to the cows, which were goring one
another; so he thought it not good to go in there, but went in to the
hay-barn. There he saw where lay the neatherd, and had his head in one
boose[16] and his feet in the other; and he lay cast on his back. The
bonder went up to him, and felt him all over with his hand, and finds
soon that he was dead, and the spine of him broken asunder; it had
been broken over the raised stone-edge of a boose.

[Footnote 16: Boose, a cow-stall.]

Now the goodman thought there was no abiding there longer; so he fled
away from the farm with all that he might take away; but all such live
stock as was left behind Glam killed, and then he fared all over the
valley and destroyed farms up from Tongue. But Thorhall was with his
friends the rest of the winter.

No man might fare up the dale with horse or hound, because straightway
it was slain. But when spring came, and the sun-light was the
greatest, somewhat the hauntings abated; and now would Thorhall
go back to his own land; he had no easy task in getting servants,