Thurid’s husband Geirmund has decided he wants to go abroad, abandoning his wife and their one-year-old daughter without any means of support. After Geirmund departs, Thurid gathers a group of men. She tells them to row her out to Geirmund’s ship, and then she tells them to bore holes into his ship’s boat.
She then had him row her and the child ashore. By this time it was dawn. She walked up the gangway and on board the ship. Everyone on board was asleep. Thurid made her way to Gerimund’s leather sleeping sack where his sword Leg-biter hung. She placed the child in the sack, took the sword, and made her way off the ship and back to her companions.
The child soon began to cry and woke Geirmund. He sat up and, recognizing his daughter, suspected he knew who was behind all this. Jumping to his feet, he reached for his sword and found it gone, as might be expected. Running up on deck he saw Thurid and her companions rowing her boat away. Geirmund called out to his men to jump into the ship’s boat and row after them. They did so, but hadn’t gone far when they noticed the sea water flooding in and turned back to the ship. Geirmund then called to Thurid to come back and return his sword Leg-biter–‘and take your daughter with you and whatever wealth you want.’
Thurid said, ‘Do you mind the loss of your sword so much?’
Geirmund replied, ‘I’d have to lose a great deal of money before I minded it as much as the loss of that sword.’
She said, ‘Then you will never have it, as you have treated me dishonorably in more ways than one. This will be the last you will see of me.’
Geirmund then spoke: ‘That sword will bring you no luck.’
She replied that she would take that chance.
‘Then I lay this curse upon it,’ Geirmund said, ‘that it will be the death of that man in your family who will be most missed and least deserve it.’
Thurid returns home; and Geirmund heads on to Norway (with his infant daughter, one presumes), where his ship runs aground and all on board are drowned.
And the sword goes to Thurid’s kinsman Bolli, who we pretty much already know is going to come to a bad end.
Though given some of Bolli’s actions right after he returns from his own trip to Norway, I’m not entirely convinced he’s the one who least deserves it. But that’s a subject for another post, one that should wait until I finish this reading of the saga.