When Bersi met Steingerd, and she asked how it went, he made this verse:-- (26) "They call him, and truly they tell it, A tree of the helmet right noble: But the master of manhood must bring me Three marks for his ransom and rescue.
Though stout in the storm of the bucklers In the stress of the Valkyrie's tempest He will bid me no more to the battle, For the best of the struggle was ours." Steinar and Cormac rode from Ellidi and passed through Saurbae.

They saw men riding towards them, and yonder came Bersi.

He greeted Cormac and asked how the wound was getting on.

Cormac said it needed little to be healed.
"Wilt thou let me heal thee ?" said Bersi; "though from me thou didst get it: and then it will be soon over." Cormac said nay, for he meant to be his lifelong foe.

Then answered Bersi:-- (27) "Thou wilt mind thee for many a season How we met in the high voice of Hilda.
Right fain I go forth to the spear-mote Being fitted for every encounter.
There Cormac's gay shield from his clutches I clave with the bane of the bucklers, For he scorned in the battle to seek me If we set not the lists of the holmgang." Thus they parted; and then Cormac went home to Mel and saw his mother.
She healed his hand; it had become ugly and healed badly.