Hello everyone. Before we get started with this week's episode, I just wanted to warn you.

This is a bit of a longer episode and allergies have my voice all over the place.

So some of the sound might be a little weird at points.

But the content should be there.

And I hope you enjoy. Today's tale begins along the foggy coast of the Snaefel-Nes

Peninsula, the wide promontory which forms the southern shore of the great Braydefyord of

Northwestern Iceland.

In the sagas, this region is known as Oury.

Toward the western end of this peninsula lay a farm called Mavahelid.

This rich land had first been settled during the Lanham period,

and a generation or so later, it was the home of a woman named Gayred, who resided there, along with her son,

Thorene the Black, and his wife, Both. Gayai Reed and Thorain were not particularly wealthy.

But Mavichlid was a valuable property,

and they maintained a measure of local prominence thanks to powerful relatives

who live just to the east along the banks of the Alfta fjord.

To the west of Mavathlid, at a place called Holtz, there lived a widow named Katla,

about whom the saga of the People of Oryry tells us, quote,

She was a fine looking woman, but not very popular, and had a son named Odd, a big robust man, loud-mouthed, a born troublemaker,

and given to gossip and slander.

Still further west along the shores of the Breda Fjord,

at a place called Frodriver,

lived a man named Thorbjorn the Stout and his family.

...