The Icelandic sorceresses

"Return yet again," she said, "and I will accompany you."

Katla's maidens, still upon the watch, announced to her the return of the hostile party, their number augmented by one who wore a blue mantle.

"Alas!" cried Katla, "it is the sorceress Geirrida, against whom spells will be of no avail."

Immediately rising from the raised and boarded seat which she occupied, she concealed Oddo beneath it, and covered it with cushions as before, on which she stretched herself complaining of indisposition. Upon the entrance of the hostile party, Geirrida, without speaking a word, flung aside her mantle, took out a piece of sealskin, in which she wrapped up Katla's head, and commanded that she should be held by some of the attendants, while the others broke open the boarded space, beneath which Oddo lay concealed, seized upon him, bound him, and led him away captive with his mother. Next morning Oddo was hanged, and Katla stoned to death; but not until she had confessed that, through her sorcery, she had occasioned the disaster of Gunlaugar, which first led the way to these feuds.