The slaying of Kjartan Óláfsson by his foster-brother and (former) loyal companion, Bolli Þorleiksson, is undoubtedly one of the most famous and moving scenes in Laxdœla saga and, indeed, all of the Icelandic family sagas. Bolli feels he has no choice but to commit the slaying, and yet he immediately feels a deep regret for having done so. After grieving thus, Bolli returns home to find his wife, Guðrún, the real agent behind Bolli’s attack on Kjartan, waiting for him. One of Bolli's men has already told Guðrún about the slaying, so when Bolli arrives, his wife is well aware of what has happened, and Bolli knows it. The exchange between the two promises to be one of the great moments of direct discourse in all of saga literature, so it is rather disconcerting that the various authors, scribes, and copyists from the medieval period to the seventeenth century cannot seem to agree on what, exactly, Guðrún says at this moment. Despite the importance this verbal exchange to the saga – or perhaps because of it – the scene has, according to Jonna Louis-Jensen, “been badly bungled in the manuscript tradition.” The principal manuscript for the saga, Möðruvallabók, appears (quite clearly) to say, “Mikil v[er]ða h[er]mdar v[er]k, ek hefi spunnit tólf álna garn, en þú hefir vegit Kjartan” (“Great are the deeds of vengeance: I have spun twelve ells of yarn, and you have killed Kjartan”). This reading, however, was unsatisfying to Einar Ól. Sveinsson, possibly due to the somewhat awkward hapax legomenon “hermdarverk,” which lead him to appeal to a much later, seventeenthcentury paper manuscript as he was editing the Íslenzk fornrit edition of the saga, producing what has become the standard reading of the line: “Misjëfn verða morginverkin; ek hefi spunnit tólf álna garn, en þú hefir vegit Kjartan” (“Unequal are the morning's labors: I have spun twelve ells of yarn, and you have killed Kjartan”). As Ólafur Halldórsson and others point out, this line is likely a variation on the proverb Drjúg eru morgunverkin (great are the morning's labors). To make matters more interesting, ÍB 225 4to, a seventeenth-century copy of the fourteenth-century Vatnshyrna manuscript, includes a variation of both phrases: “Mickel v[er]ða h[er]nað[ar] v[er]kin, en misjöfn morgen v[er] kin […].”