And when Egil had finished his meal, he went where the woman lay and spoke with her. Then he bade
them lift her from her place and lay clean clothes under her, and they did so. Next he searched the bed
in which she had lain, and there he found a piece of whalebone whereon were runes. Egil read them,
then cut the runes and scraped them off into the fire. He burned the whole piece of whalebone, and had
the bed-clothes that she had used hung out to air. Then Egil sang:

’Runes none should grave ever

Who knows not to read them;

Of dark spell full many

The meaning may miss.

Ten spell-words writ wrongly

On whale-bone were graven:

Whence to leek-tending maiden,

Long sorrow and pain.’

Egil then graved runes, and laid them under the bolster of the bed where the woman lay. She seemed
as if she waked out of sleep, and said she now felt well, but she was weak. But her father and mother
were overjoyed. And Thorfinn offered to Egil all the furtherance that he might think needful.

Chapter 76 - Egil comes to landowner Alf.
Egil said to his comrades that he would go on his way and abide no longer. Thorfinn had a son named
Helgi, a valiant man. Father and son offered Egil their company through the wood. They said they
knew for a fact that Armod Beard had put six men into the wood to lie in wait for them, and it was
likely that there would be more ambushed in the wood in case the first should fail. There were with
Thorfinn four that offered to go. Then Egil sang a stave:

’If four with me follow,

Thou findest not six men

With us bloody sword-blows

To barter in fight.

And if he with eight go,

Undaunted in courage

On twelve black-browed Egil

The battle will dare.’

Thorfinn and his men decided to go into the wood with Egil: thus they were eight in all. And when
they came where the ambush was set, they saw men there. But these house-carles of Armod who were
in ambush, on seeing that the travellers were eight in number, thought they were overmatched, and hid
them away in the wood. And when Egil’s party came where the liers-in-wait had been, they saw that
all was not peaceful. And now Egil said that Thorfinn and his men should go back, but they offered to
go further. However Egil would not have it, and bade them go home; so they did so and turned back.