At first the women were afraid of the sound of their own voices and whispered among themselves, and it was difficult to coax any of them to speak aloud; but before long they were persuaded to overcome their shyness and began to testify vigorously. Their prisoner, they said, had gone up to the Stone and cried in a loud voice and had then hit Styrkar over the head with his cross, causing the latter to cry also; then he had dug his cross into Styrkar’s stomach and pushed him off the Stone. On this they were all agreed, though some said that the priest had struck once, and some twice, and they began to quarrel about this.
When the magister heard them testify thus, he became white in the face with terror and astonishment. Raising his bound hands toward heaven, he cried: “No, no!” in a loud voice. But nobody bothered to listen to the rest of what he had to say, and the old women gave a tug on the rope to silence him.
Ugge now said that this evidence was more than sufficient, for even the speech of women could be regarded as credible when so many of them said the same thing. Whether the murderer had struck once or twice did not affect the issue; here, he said, they had before them a clear case of priest-murder committed on holy ground.
“This crime,” he proceeded, “has been regarded ever since the most ancient times as one of the foulest that it is possible to perpetrate, and occurs so rarely that many men sit through a whole lifetime of Things without ever having to judge an instance of it. The penalty for it, which is also of ancient prescription, is, I think, known to no one here save us two old men, Sone and I; unless, perhaps, you, Olof, who reckon yourself to be wiser than us, also know it?”
It was evident that Olof Summerbird was displeased at this question; nevertheless, he answered boldly that he had often heard that the penalty for this crime was that the culprit should be hung by his feet from the nethermost branch of a tree, with his head resting on an ant-hill.
Ugge and Sone beamed with delight when they heard him give this answer.
“It was not to be expected that you would know the correct sentence,” said Ugge, “so young as you are; for to attain wisdom and knowledge takes longer than you would like to think. The proper punishment is that the murderer shall be handed over to Ygg, which in former times was our fathers’ name for Odin; and now Sone will tell us the manner in which the presentation is to be made.”
“Twenty good spears shall be found,” said Sone, “with no rot in their shafts; and to each spear, just below the end of the iron shoe, a crosspiece shall be fixed. Then the spears shall be driven into the ground to half their length, close together with their points facing upwards. On these the murderer shall be cast, and there he shall remain until his bones drop to the ground.”
“Such is the law,” said Ugge. “The only detail you omitted to mention is that he shall be cast so as to land on the spears on his back, in order that he may lie with his face toward the sky.”
A murmur of satisfaction passed through the whole assembly as they heard this punishment described, which was so ancient and rare that nobody had seen it. The magister had by now become calm and stood there with his eyes closed, mumbling to himself; the women, however, received the news of his sentence much less placidly. They clamored that this was a crazy punishment to condemn him to, and they had not intended, when testifying, that anything like that should happen; and two of them, who were related to Ugge, pushed their way through the crowd toward him, called him an old fool, and asked why he had not told them of this penalty before they had testified. They had, they said, given the evidence that he had heard because they wished to keep the Christ-priest, whom they liked and held to be more potent than Styrkar, fearing that if he was acquitted, he would be set free and go back to the Göings.
The most vehement protests came from one of the old women, who was Styrkar’s niece. Eventually she succeeded in quieting the others so that her voice might be heard alone. She was large and coarse-limbed and shook with fury as she stood there before Ugge. She said that in Värend no decision was taken about anything until the women had passed judgment, and that old men there were put out to play in the woods.
“I have nursed Styrkar, troll that he was, for many years,” she shrieked, “gaining my livelihood thereby. How shall I live now that he is dead? Are you listening to me, you crookbacked imbecile? Another priest, young and beautiful, and, from his appearance, wise and tractable also, has come and killed him, and nobody can deny that it was high time that somebody did so. And what do you suggest we should now do! Throw this young man upon the points of spears! What good will that do to anybody? I tell you that he shall be handed over to me, to replace the priest I have lost. He is a fine priest, and when the dance round the Stone was finished he performed to the satisfaction of us all; in nine months the whole of Värend will be able to testify to the efficacy of his magic. The services of such a priest will be sought by many, and all who come will bring him gifts; and I shall thereby be compensated for my loss, whether I have him as husband or as slave. What purpose will be served by throwing him upon spears? It would be better if you sat on them yourself, for it is plain that your age and learning have driven you crazy. He shall be mine, as payment for the murder he has committed, if there be any justice in the world. Do you hear that?”
She shook her clenched fist in front of Ugge’s face and appeared to be considering whether to spit in it.
“She is right, she is right! Katla is right!” cried the women. “Give him to us in Styrkar’s place! We need a priest of his mettle!”
Ugge waved his hands and shouted as loudly as he could in an endeavor to quiet them; and beside him Olof Summerbird was near to falling backwards from his stone in his delight in the wise man’s discomfiture.
But Sone the Sharp-Sighted now rose from his stone and spoke in a voice that made everyone suddenly quiet.
“Peace has been pronounced upon this assembly,” he said, “and it is a quality of wise men to endure women patiently. It would be an ill thing if we should allow the peace to be broken, and particularly ill for you, women; for we could then sentence you to be birched before the assembly, with good switches of birch or hazel, which would be sadly ignominious for you. If that were to happen, all men would snigger at the sight of you for the rest of your days, and I think none of you would wish that to happen. Therefore let there be an end to your screamings and vituperations. But one question I would ask of you before you depart from this place. Was Styrkar struck by the Christ-priest, or was he not?”
The women had now become calm. They replied with one accord that he had not so much as touched Styrkar; he had merely shouted something and raised his cross, at which the old man had fallen backwards and died. This, they declared, was the pure truth; they could, they said, tell the truth as well as anyone, if only they knew what purpose it would serve.
The women, including Katla and her captive, were now ordered to leave while Ugge debated with his chosen twelve over a suitable sentence. Several of them thought that the priest ought to be killed, for there could be no doubt that he had slain Styrkar by trollcraft, and the sooner one got rid of a Christ-priest, the better. But others opposed this argument, saying that any man who had managed to troll the life out of Styrkar was worth keeping alive. For if he had succeeded in doing this, he must also have been able to perform efficaciously upon the women; besides which, there was the old woman’s argument to be considered, for, as she had asserted, it was true that no compensation could be claimed from the Göings for the loss of her man. The end of it was that Ugge declared that Katla should keep the Christ-priest as a slave until the fourth Thing following this one, extracting from him as much service as she could during that period. Neither Sone nor anyone else had any fault to find with this judgment.