Where the Shadows Lie (Fire and Ice)

caught Gaukur entering the barn, looking for the helm. Ásgrímur confronted Gaukur who drew his sword.
    ‘Would you kill me in order to steal what is not yours, just as you killed your brother?’ Ásgrímur asked.
    In answer Gaukur swung his sword at Ásgrímur. They fought. Although Gaukur was the stronger and the better warrior, he was overconfident and Ásgrímur was fired with anger at the betrayal by the foster-brother whom he had always supported so loyally. He ran Gaukur through with a spear.
    Ásgrímur searched for the ring but never found it and Ingileif would not tell him where it was hidden. She said that the ring had already caused enough evil and should be left to rest.
    Six months after Gaukur’s death, Ingileif gave birth to a son, Hogni.
    But the ring did not lie quietly. A century later there was an enormous volcanic eruption and Hekla smothered Gaukur’s farm at Stöng in ash, to be lost for ever.
    The ring is still hidden somewhere in the hills near Stöng. One day it will emerge, just as it emerged out of the Rhine at the time of Ulf. When it does, it must not fall again into the hands of an evil man. It must be tossed into the mouth of Mount Hekla, as the Sami sorceress decreed.
    Until that time this saga shall be kept secret by the heirs of Hogni.
    Magnus handed the last page to Árni, who still had several pages to go, which was fair enough since English was not his first language. Magnus stared out over the lake at the two small islands in the middle.
    He tried to control his excitement. Could the saga be real? If it was, it would be one of the greatest finds in Icelandic literature. More than that, its discovery would reverberate around the world.
    He was quite certain that if it was genuine, it was previously unknown. There were no doubt plenty of minor sagas that Magnus had never heard of, but this was no minor saga. The Ring of Andvari, and the fact that the main character was Gaukur, the owner of Stöng, would have ensured that the story would have become widely known within Iceland and beyond. Magnus recognized a couple of the characters from his beloved Njáls Saga : Njáll himself and Ásgrímur Ellida-Grímsson.
    But was it genuine? It was difficult to be sure in translation, but the style looked authentic. Icelandic sagas had none of the poetic flourishes of medieval tales from the rest of Europe. At their best they were terse, precise and down to earth, more Hemingway than Tennyson. Unlike the rest of Europe, the ability to read in medieval Iceland was not confined to the clergy and books were not restricted to Latin. It was a nation of scattered farms, and there was a need for farmers isolated from village priests to be able to read the Bible for themselves and their households during the long winter nights. The sagas were historical novels written to be read by, not simply recited to, a mass audience.
    If the saga was real, Gaukur’s descendants had done a wonderful job of keeping it secret over the centuries. Until now, when a two-bit professor of Icelandic had taken it upon himself to show it to the wider world. Magnus had no doubt that this is what Agnar wanted to sell to Steve Jubb and the modern-day Isildur.
    The links to The Lord of the Rings in Gaukur’s Saga were obvious, much stronger than the Saga of the Volsungs . For one thing, the ‘magic’ of the ring was more powerful and more specific. Although there was nothing about invisibility, the ring took over the character of its keeper, corrupting him and causing him to betray or even kill his friends. And it extended his life. Ísildur’s quest to throw the ring into Mount Hekla had obvious parallels with Frodo’s quest to fling Sauron’s Ring into Mount Doom.
    The Lord of the Rings Internet chat rooms would be buzzing for years once they saw the saga. If they ever saw it. Perhaps the modern Isildur’s plan was to hoard it somewhere, his very own Viking booty.
    Magnus was not surprised he was prepared to pay so much.
    But this was an English translation. There must be an Icelandic original, or more likely a copy of it, from which Agnar had made his translation. Magnus was sure that Baldur would have noticed an original saga written on eight-hundred-year-old vellum, but he could easily have missed a modern-day Icelandic copy.
    While Árni finished reading the last few pages, Magnus searched through Agnar’s other papers.
    Nothing.
    ‘Perhaps it’s in Agnar’s office at the university?’ Árni