At that moment a man came walking across the courtyard from the barnyard leading a huge black ox, but the ox was mean and intractable, and it tore away from the man. Trond leaped up on top of the pile of timbers, chasing the older children ahead of him, but he was carrying Ulvhild in one arm and he had his youngest son by the hand. A log suddenly rolled beneath his feet, and Ulvhild fell from his grasp and down the hill. The log slid after her and then rolled until it came to rest on the child’s back.
Lavrans dashed down from the gallery at once. He came racing over and tried to lift the log. Suddenly the ox charged toward him. He grabbed for its horns but he was knocked off his feet; then he managed to seize hold of its nostrils, pulled himself halfway up, and held on to the ox until Trond recovered from his confusion, and the men who came running from the house threw harnesses over the animal.
Ragnfrid was on her knees, trying to raise the log. Lavrans lifted it enough so that she could pull the child out and place her on her lap. The little girl whimpered terribly when they touched her, but Ragnfrid sobbed loudly, “She’s alive, thank God, she’s alive.”
It was a great miracle that Ulvhild had not been crushed; the log had fallen in such a way that it had come to rest with one end lying on top of a rock in the grass. When Lavrans straightened up, blood ran from his mouth, and his clothes had been ripped to shreds across his chest from the ox’s horns.
Tordis came running with a sheet made from hides; carefully she and Ragnfrid lifted the child onto it, but she sounded as if she was suffering intolerable pain at even the slightest touch. Ragnfrid and Tordis carried her into the winter house.
Kristin stood pale and rigid on the pile of timbers; the little boys clung to her, crying. All the servants of the farm had now gathered in the courtyard, the women weeping and wailing. Lavrans ordered them to saddle Guldsvein and one more horse. But when Arne brought the horses, Lavrans fell to the ground when he tried to mount. Then he ordered Arne to ride over to the priest while Halvdan would travel south to bring back a wise woman who lived near the place where the rivers converged.
Kristin saw that her father’s face was grayish white; he had bled so much that his light-blue clothing was completely covered with reddish-brown spots. Suddenly he straightened up, tore an axe out of the hands of one of the men, and strode over to where several servants were still holding on to the ox. He struck the beast between the horns with the blade of the axe so that the ox sank to its knees, but Lavrans kept on hammering away until blood and brains were spattered everywhere. Then he was seized by a coughing fit and fell backward onto the ground. Trond and one of the men had to carry him inside.
Kristin thought her father was dead; she screamed loudly and ran after him as she called to him with all her heart.
Inside the winter house Ulvhild had been placed on her parents’ bed. All of the pillows had been thrown to the floor so that the child could lie flat. It looked as if she had already been laid out on the straw of her deathbed. But she was moaning loudly and incessantly, and her mother was leaning over her, stroking and patting her, wild with grief because there was nothing she could do.
Lavrans was lying on the other bed. He got up and staggered across the floor to console his wife.
Then she sprang up and screamed, “Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me! Jesus, Jesus, I am so worthless that you should strike me dead—will there never be an end to the misfortune I bring upon you?”
“You haven’t … my dear wife, this is not something you have brought upon us,” said Lavrans, placing a hand on her shoulder. She shuddered at his touch and her pale gray eyes glistened in her gaunt, sallow face.
“No doubt she means that I am the one who caused this,” said Trond Ivars?n harshly.
His sister shot him a look of hatred and replied, “Trond knows what I mean.”
Kristin ran to her parents but they both pushed her aside. And Tordis, who came over with a kettle of hot water, took her gently by the shoulders and said, “Go over to our house, Kristin. You’re in the way here.”
Tordis wanted to attend to Lavrans, who was sitting on the step of the bed, but he told her that he was not gravely wounded.
“But can’t you ease Ulvhild’s pain a little? God help us, her moans could arouse pity from the stone inside the mountain.”
“We don’t dare touch her until the priest arrives, or Ingegjerd, the wise woman,” said Tordis.
Arne came in just then and reported that Sira Eirik was not at home.
Ragnfrid stood there for a moment, wringing her hands. Then she said, “Send word to Fru Aashild at Haugen. Nothing else matters, if only Ulvhild can be saved.”