The champions were rioting at this banquet with every sort of wantonness, and flinging from all over the room knobbed bones at a certain Hjalte; but it chanced that his messmate, named Bjarke, received a violent blow on the head through the ill aim of the thrower; at whom, stung both by the pain and the jeering, he sent the bone back, so that he twisted the front of his head to the back, and wrung the back of it to where the front had been; punishing the wryness of the man's temper by turning his face sidelong.

This deed moderated their wanton and injurious jests, and drove the champions to quit the place.

The bridegroom, nettled at this affront to the banquet, resolved to fight Bjarke, in order to seek vengeance by means of a duel for the interruption of their mirth.

At the outset of the duel there was a long dispute, which of them ought to have the chance of striking first.

For of old, in the ordering of combats, men did not try to exchange their blows thick and fast; but there was a pause, and at the same time a definite succession in striking: the contest being carried on with few strokes, but those terrible, so that honour was paid more to the mightiness than to the number of the blows.
Agnar, being of higher rank, was put first; and the blow which he dealt is said to have been so furious, that he cut through the front of the helmet, wounded the skin on the scalp, and had to let go his sword, which became locked in the vizor-holes.