{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_32443/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_32443","id":"gutenberg_32443","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32443","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Adventure","Category: Historical Novels","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Novels","Hallfre\u00f0ur \u00d3ttarsson, vandr\u00e6\u00f0ask\u00e1ld -- Romances","Sagas -- Translations into English"],"text":"Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive\n\n\n\n\nSource: http://www.archive.org/details/sagahalfredsigs00veitgoog\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                      SAGA OF HALFRED THE SIGSKALD\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                                  SAGA\n\n                                   OF\n\n                          HALFRED THE SIGSKALD\n\n\n                     _A Northern Tale of the Tenth_\n                               _Century_\n\n\n\n                                   BY\n                              FELIX DAHN.\n\n\n\n                   TRANSLATED BY SOPHIE F. E. VEITCH.\n\n\n\n                           ALEXANDER GARDNER,\n                PAISLEY; AND 12 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.\n                                 1886.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                               CONTENTS.\n\n\n                                                              PAGE\n\n  CHAPTER I.,\n  CHAPTER II.,\n  CHAPTER III.,\n  CHAPTER IV.,\n  CHAPTER V.,\n  CHAPTER VI.,\n  CHAPTER VII.,\n  CHAPTER VIII.,\n  CHAPTER IX.,\n  CHAPTER X.,\n  CHAPTER XI.,\n  CHAPTER XII.,\n  CHAPTER XIII.,\n  CHAPTER XIV.,\n  CHAPTER XV.,\n  CHAPTER XVI.,\n  CHAPTER XVII.,\n  CHAPTER XVIII.,\n  CHAPITER XIX.,\n  POSTSCRIPT,\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                     Saga of Halfred the Sigskald.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER I.\n\n\nNigh upon fifty winters ago, there was growing up in the North a boy\nnamed Halfred. In Iceland, on the Hamund Fjord, stood the splendid hall\nof his father, Hamund.\n\nAt that time, so the heathen people believe, elves and goblins still\nmoved about freely among the Northern nations. And many say that an\nelf, who had been friendly to the powerful Hamund, drew near to the\nshield cradle of the boy Halfred, and for his first food laid wild\nhoney upon his lips, and said--\n\n           \"Victory shall be thine in harping--\n            Victory shall be thine in singing--\n            Sigskald shall all nations name thee.\"\n\nBut this is a mere idle tale of the heathen people.\n\nAnd Halfred grew, and was strong and beautiful. He sat often alone on\nthe cliffs, and listened how the wind played in rifts in the crags, and\nhe would fain have tuned his harp to the same strain, and because he\ncould not do it he was filled with fury.\n\nAnd when this fury swept over his forehead the veins in his temples\nswelled, and there came a red darkness before his eyes. And then his\narm sometimes did that whereof his head knew nothing.\n\nWhen his father died Halfred took the seat of honour in the hall. But\nhe took no heed to preserve or improve his inheritance. He gave himself\nup to harp playing and feats of arms. He devised a new strain in\nsinging, \"Halfred's strain,\" which greatly charmed all who heard it,\nand in which none could imitate him. And in hatchet throwing, not one\nof the men of Iceland could equal him. He dashed his hammer through\nthree shields, and at two ships' lengths he would not miss with its\nsharp edge a finger broad arrow shaft.\n\nHis mind was now set upon building a dragon ship, strong and splendid,\nworthy of a Viking, wherein he might make voyages, to harry or levy\ntoll upon island and mainland, or to play his harp in the halls of\nkings.\n\nAnd through many an anxious night he considered how he should build his\nship, and could devise no plan. Yet the image of the ship was always\nbefore his eyes, as it must be, with prow and stem, with board and bow;\nand instead of a dragon it must carry a silver swan on the prow.\n\nAnd when, one morning, he came out of the hall, and looked out over the\nFjord, towards the north, there, from the south-south-east, came\nfloating into Hamund's Bay a mighty ship, with swelling sails. Then\nHalfred and his house-churls seized their weapons, and hurried out\neither to drive away or welcome the sailors. Ever nearer drove the\nship, but neither helmet nor spear flashed on board, and though they\nshouted through the trumpet all was still. Then Halfred and his\nfollowers sprang into the boat, and rowed to the great ship, and saw\nthat it was altogether empty, and climbed on board. And this was the\nmost splendid dragon ship that ever spread sail on the salt seas. But\ninstead of a dragon it bore a silver swan upon the prow.\n\nAnd moreover also, Halfred told me, the ship was in all things the\nsame as the image he had seen in his night and day dreams; forty oars\nin iron rowlocks, the deck pavillioned with shields, the sails\npurple-striped, the prow carved with runes against breakers, and the\nropes of sea-dogs' skin. And the high-arched silver wings of the swan\nwere ingeniously carved, and the wind rushed through them with a\nmelodious sound.\n\nAnd Halfred sprang up to the seat of honour on the upper-deck, upon\nwhich lay spread a purple royal mantle, and a silver harp, with a\nswan's head, leaned against it.\n\nAnd Halfred said--\n\n           \"Singing Swan shalt thou be called, my ship;\n            Singing and victorious shalt thou sail.\"\n\nAnd many said the elf who had given him his name had sent the Singing\nSwan to him.\n\nBut that is an idle tale of the heathen people. For it has often\nhappened that slightly anchored ships have broken away in storms, while\nthe seamen were carousing ashore.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER II.\n\n\nAnd forthwith it became known that Halfred had armed the best of his\nhouse churls, and his followers, with good weapons, to set forth as a\nViking to conquer, and as a Skald to sing.\n\nAnd over the whole of Iceland, and the islands all around, there was\nmuch talk about the Singing Swan, which \"Oski\"[1] himself--that is the\ngod of the heathen people--had sent to Halfred Hamundson. \"He is the\nson of Oski; nothing shall miscarry with him, be it man's hate, or\nwoman's love, in sword thrusts, or in harp playing; great treasure and\nrich Skald rewards shall he win, and his gentle hand can take and\nspend, but keep nothing.\"\n\nAnd now there came many, drawn to him by the wish to be his sailing\ncomrades, even from the furthest islands of the western sea, so that he\ncould have manned seven ships. He manned, however, only the Singing\nSwan, with three hundred men whom he chose himself, and with them he\nset sail upon the sea.\n\nAnd now there would be much which might be told about the great\nvictories which Halfred won, through many long years, with hammer\nand harp, on all the seas from Mikilgard--which the Latins call\nByzantium--even to the island of Hibernia, in the far west.\n\nAnd of all these feats and victories, voyages and minstrelsy, and\ncontests of arms and harp playing, had I, as a child by the cloister\nhearth, heard the Skalds sing, and wandering guests recount, long\nbefore I looked into Halfred's sea-grey eyes.\n\nFor during the long time that he was wholly lost sight of, and the\nSinging Swan had vanished in flames, and all people held Halfred for\ndead, the Skalds composed many songs about him. But that was later.\n\nAt that time Halfred thus roamed about everywhere, singing and\ntriumphing, winning fights at sea, and contests in palaces. And because\nhe was victor over all the Skalds in singing competitions, the people\nnamed him \"Sigskald,\" and from that, the heathen people, prophesying\nbackwards, invented, perhaps, that fable about the elf which had given\nhim honey, and his name, in the cradle.\n\nAnd he amassed great spoils, and many hundred rings of red gold, and\ngave them all away again to his sailing comrades. And yet he still\nheaped up rich hords upon the Singing Swan; and brought also much\ntreasure to Hamund's hall, where he was wont to pass the winter.\n\nAnd he splendidly improved the hall, and built over against it a great\nMead hall, in which a thousand men could drink: and six steps led to\nthe seat of honour in the Mead hall.\n\nBut the most costly thing among all his spoils was a\ncandelabrum--\"Lampas\" the Greeks call it--half as high as a man, of\npure gold, with seven flaming arms, which far away, in the land of\nGreece, he had borne away from a marble city that he had burned.\n\nAnd this treasure Halfred himself prized highly, who otherwise cared\nnothing for gold. And at the Yule feast, and the Midsummer feast, and\nat all high festivals, it must stand close before him upon the table,\nwith its sevenfold flame.\n\nBut that at which everyone wondered most was, that all people who saw\nHalfred, and heard him sing, seemed to be forced to be friendly to him.\nIt often happened that even the Skalds whom he vanquished in song\ncontests, themselves conceived great love for him, and praised his\nstrains more than their own.\n\nBut this is truly the most incredible thing that can be told of Skalds.\nCompared to this it is a small thing that a wooer whom he had\nsupplanted in a woman's favour should become his friend and blood\nbrother. But that was later.\n\nAnd, indeed, because everything seemed miraculous, those heathen people\ninvented that legend that he was the son of Oski, and that therefore\nneither men's wrath nor maiden's pride could withstand him; that a god\nwas throned upon his forehead, who dazzled all eyes; with many more\nsuch fables.\n\nAbove all they say that his smile could conquer all hearts, as the\nmidsummer sun melts the ice.\n\nAnd about this also they tell a story.\n\nThat is, that once, in the depth of winter, he found at the foot of\nSnaeja-Tjoell, a little maiden of five years old, nearly frozen to\ndeath. She had strayed from her mother's cottage, and could not find\nthe way back.\n\nAnd although Halfred was very weary, and had many followers with him,\nhe sent them all nevertheless alone to the hall, took the child himself\nupon his shoulder, and travelled many stages further, always tracking\nthe tiny footprints of the little maiden, who had fallen fast asleep,\nuntil he found her mother's cottage. And he laid the child in the\nmother's arms, and she woke and smiled. And the mother wished for him,\nas a reward, that he should smile henceforth like a child that sees its\nmother again. And this also had Oski granted to him.\n\nBut this is a mere idle tale of the heathen people; for there is no\nOski; and no heathen gods; and perchance also no[2] .... I say that he\ncarried the child back himself, carefully, to the mother. Many a Viking\nwould only, from compassion, have thrust her deeper in the snow; the\nbest would have given her to one of his followers to carry to the hall.\nBut to carry her back, himself, through the snow, to her mother, that\nwould no Viking have done that I know; above all when he was tired and\nhungry.\n\nI say, then, in Halfred there was great goodness of heart, such as is\ngenerally wont to be found alone in innocent children; and therefore\nhis smile was heart-winning, as is a child's smile. And out of this,\ntherefore, have the heathen people invented that gift of Oski.\n\nFor that he did carry the child to the mother, that I certainly,\nmyself, fully and undoubtingly believe of Halfred. And I would be the\nlast not to believe it of him.\n\nNevertheless he could become suddenly very wrathful, when the veins in\nhis temples swelled. Then, often, if any enemy roused him by defiance,\nhe would dash, blindly raging, among the spears, like a Berseker.\n\nOver and above all this, they tell many tales of the god-like gifts\nwhich made maidens love him. But that is not a miracle, as it comes\nvery near being that a conquered singer should love him.\n\nFor he possessed a brilliant noble countenance, which no one forgot who\nhad once seen it, and a heart-winning soft, yet powerful voice. He\navoided rude jesting; and he could always divine what was the peculiar\ncharm of every fair maiden's beauty; and he knew how to put it to her\nas a riddle, over which she herself had long been vainly pondering.\n\nBut other riddles, also, he knew well how to find out.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER III.\n\n\nAnd thus had Halfred now, for many years, roamed about as a Viking and\nas a Skald, and had won fame and red gold; and once more he again\ncelebrated the Yule feast at home in his hall.\n\nAnd there were very many hundred men assembled there in the Mead hall\nwhich he had fitted up. All his sailing comrades, and very many\nIcelanders, and many foreign guests, from Austrvegr, and even from\nHylmreck, and Dyflin, on the western sea. Among them also the Skald,\nVandrad, from Tiunderland.\n\nAnd the Bragi cup[3] passed round, and many men vowed vows thereon, and\nmany a one pledged himself to daring deeds, which he would perform\nbefore Midsummertide, or die. Halfred also, as well as the guests, had\ndrunk a great deal of mead; more than he was wont to drink, as he\nhimself, afterwards, earnestly told me.\n\nAnd this also the heathen point to in him as a miraculous gift of his\nfather Oski; that he could drink far far more than other men, in\nfact--and they hold him therein very lucky--as many horns full as he\nchose, without the heron of forgetfulness[4] sweeping through his\ndizzied brain.\n\nBut this is foolishly said, for even I can scare away the heron, if I,\nafter each draught, think quietly to myself, and do not propose many\ntoasts; for such attract the heron.\n\nHalfred had now certainly emptied many horns; but as yet he had vowed\nno vow. Silent and grave he sat in the seat of the honour, as befitted\nthe host; exhorted the tardy drinkers--there were not however many of\nthem--by sending the cup bearer to them, with the drinking horn; and\nsmiled quietly, when many a one vowed vows which he would never fulfil.\n\nThen arose from his seat Vandrad the Skald, from Tiunderland, and stood\nupon the second step of the dais, and spoke. Halfred had vanquished him\nfive times, and yet the Skald was a faithful loving friend to him--\n\n     \"Vows have here been now vowed by many\n      Guests of small worth.\n      But Halfred, the Lord of the mead hall,\n      Still holds his thoughts hidden.\n      I laud him, most lofty,\n      No vows hath he need of,\n      His name may content him.\n      Yet I miss in the mead hall\n      One thing to the mighty,\n      To the man is awanting\n      A maiden to wife.\n      What rapture if only,\n      From the high seat of honour,\n      The horn to us, downward,\n      The dazzling white hand\n      Of the nobly born Princess,\n      Harthild, should hold.\"\n\nAll the guests kept silence when Vandrad had spoken. Halfred looked\nproudly down upon him, and very gently, he told me later, he felt the\nveins in his temples swell, as, smiling, he asked the Skald--but it was\nthe smile of a king, not a child's smile--\n\n     \"And what then of Harthild,\n      Her beauty and fame,\n      Canst thou here sound the praise,\n      In Halfred's mead hall?\"\n\nThen said Vandrad--\n\n     \"For all that thou knowest,\n      Thou far roaming Viking,\n      Hast thou never heard Harthild's\n      Descent and renown\n      Proclaimed on the harp?\n      From Upsala's ancient\n      Deep rooted stem\n      The maiden is sprung.\n      Hartstein the Haggard,\n      Men call her father,\n      The powerful monarch\n      Of far spreading fame.\n      His daughter close guarded\n      He haughtily holds;\n      All wooers rejecting,\n      Who cannot excel him\n      In throwing the hammer.\n      And no less the maiden\n      All men avoideth,\n      Man-like her own mood.\n      With good cause she boasteth\n      Herself in deep riddles\n      Above all the Skalds\n      Skilful to be.\n      'Breaker of men's wits'\n      In dread and in envy,\n      They call her in Nordland.\n      To every wooer\n      Who fain her proud spirit\n      In wedlock would bind,\n      Tells she the same\n      Close sealed riddle;\n      For none--not the wisest--\n      Has ever yet solved it.\n      Then scornfully laughing,\n      With her sharp scissors,\n      --For so runs the statute--\n      To shame him, she sheareth\n      From the hero his hair.\"\n\nThen Halfred's temple veins swelled fearfully. He shook back the thick\nblack locks which flowed down even to his shoulders, and drained off a\ndeep drinking horn. Then he sprang from his seat, and seized the Bragi\ncup, on which vows were wont to be vowed. Once more he paused, set down\nthe Bragi cup again, and asked--\n\n     \"But Skald, say now, quickly,\n      --Oft hast thou seen her--\n      This men avoider.\n      Beautiful is she?\n      This breaker of men's wits,\n      Would the bride's wreath become her?\"\n\nVandrad replied--\n\n     \"Nor soft nor gentle,\n      Is she, nor lovely,\n      But proud and stately\n      Stands her tall form.\n      Nor could another\n      Carry so fitly\n      The crown of a king.\"\n\nThen Halfred again took up the Bragi cup, strode forward to the highest\nstep which led to his seat of honour, and paused where exactly in the\ncentre was burned into the oaken floor a circle, in red runes, so small\nthat a man could only tread therein with one foot. Halfred kneeled\ndown, planted his left foot within the circle, and lifted the Bragi cup\nin his right hand, high above his head.\n\nAnd all were very eager to hear what he would now say; for this was the\nstrongest, the most solemn form in which vow could be vowed. And\nHalfred said--\n\n           \"Ere yet the on coming\n            Midsummer tide\n            Shall sink in the sea,\n            Will I bring Harthild,\n            The daughter of Hartstein,\n            Here as my wife,\n            To dwell in my hall,\n            Or hold me shall Hell.\n\n           \"Her wit-breaking sayings\n            Will I lay bare,\n            Her runic riddles\n            Will I unfold.\n            Unshamed, and unshaven,\n            These black locks shake freely.\n            Her man-despising\n            Maiden mood quelling,\n            My wedded wife\n            Will force her to be.\n            The breaker of men's wits\n            Will I break in.\n            A right noble heir\n            Of all that I own\n            She shall here, in my hall,\n            Soon cherish, my son.\n            And softly shall sing him\n            To sleep with the songs\n            Of his father's great deeds,\n            Or hold me shall Hell.\"\n\nThus ended the Yule feast, at that time; for all the guests started up\nfrom their seats with a great uproar, in a confused throng, and drank\nto Halfred, and shouted that this was the best and most admirable vow\nwhich in the memory of man had been vowed in the north.\n\nAnd the tumult was so great that Halfred had to command silence from\nthe dais, and very soon to send round the parting cup to the uproarious\nheroes.\n\nAnd Halfred told me that when, under the light of the stars, he crossed\nthe court to his dwelling-house, he repented of his vow. Not because he\nfeared King Hartstein's hammer-throwing, or dreaded his daughter's\nriddle. But because it is always wiser for a man to see a maiden,\nbefore he determines to make her his wife.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER IV.\n\n\nAnd so soon as the Austr-Vogen was free from ice, the Singing Swan\nsailed towards Svearike, and through numberless perils into the great\nsea which lies to the south and east of Upland; and from thence she\nfollowed a river, as far as there was floating depth, upwards towards\nTiunderland, and to Upsala.\n\nAnd many will now believe that Halfred had a great struggle and much\ndifficulty to overcome King Hartstein and his daughter, and will expect\nto hear how it came to pass.\n\nBut there is nothing to tell; for everything went easily and quickly\nwith him, according to his wishes, which the heathen people again\nboasted had been thus arranged by Oski.\n\nKing Hartstein was, in general, a flinty-hearted man, full of\nsuspicion, and short of speech. When, however, he saw Halfred, and\ncalled to him as he entered his hall, and drew near to the throne, and\nasked him--\"Stranger, what desirest thou in Tiunderland, and of King\nHartstein?\"--And when Halfred, with that smile which Oski had bestowed\nupon him, looked into the fierce eyes, and joyously replied--\"The best\nwill I have that Tiunderland and King Hartstein possess--his daughter.\"\nThen the grim old man was at once won, and in his secret heart he\nwished that Halfred might be his son-in-law.\n\nAnd then they went out to the court for the hammer-throwing, and the\nKing threw well, but Halfred threw far better, and thus the first trial\nwas won.\n\n\"Harder will thou find the second,\" said the old man, and led Halfred\nto the Skemma, the chamber of the women, where the breaker of men's\nwits, in a shining dark blue mantle, sat among her maidens, a head\ntaller than any of them.\n\nAnd they say that when Halfred entered the chamber, and his glance fell\nupon her, a hot tremor passed over her, and a sudden glow dyed her\ncheeks crimson, and confused her.\n\nCertain it is that with a golden spindle, with which she had played\nrather than spun, she pricked her finger, and let it fall with a\nclatter.\n\nBut Sudha, the foremost of her maidens, the captive daughter of the\nKing of Halogaland, who sat at her right hand, picked up the spindle,\nand held it. And many interpreted this later, as a bad omen. At the\ntime, however, it was hardly observed.\n\nAnd Vandrad the Skald said later to Halfred, that the woman had\nbeen elf-struck at the first sight of him: but he thereupon said\nearnestly--\"It had been better had I been elf-struck at sight of her;\nbut I remained unwounded.\"\n\nAnd forthwith King Hartstein assembled all his courtiers, and the women\nof the castle, and the guests, in the hall, for the riddle solving.\n\nAnd Harthild arose from the arm chair at his right hand, and her face\ngrew crimson as she looked at Halfred, which--as they declare--had\nnever before happened to her at the challenging of her riddle.\n\nShe paused for a space, looked downwards, then again upon Halfred, and\nnow with searching and defiant eyes. And she began--\n\n           \"What is held in Valhalla?\n            What is hidden in Hell?\n            What hammers in hammer?\n            And heads the strong helm?\n            What begins the host slaughter?\n            What closes a sigh?\n            And what holds in Harthild\n            The head and the heart?\"\n\nThen she would have seated herself, as was her wont after giving out\nthe riddle; but struck by terror she remained standing, and grasped the\narm of the chair; for Halfred, without any reflecting, stretched his\nright hand towards her, and spoke--\n\n           \"Hast thou nothing harder,\n            Haughty one, hidden?\n            Then wreathe thy proud head\n            For Hymen in haste,\n            For what's held in Valhalla,\n            What's hidden in Hell,\n            What hammers in hammer,\n            And heads the strong helm,\n            What begins the host slaughter,\n            And closes a sigh,\n            What Harthild the haughty\n            The head and the heart holds,\n            What hovers deep hidden\n            In high thoughts of her heart,\n            And what here has Halfred\n            To proud Harthild holpen,\n            'Tis the Sacred Rune\n            The hero's own H.\"\n\nThen Harthild sank pale with rage in her chair, and covered her head\nwith her veil.\n\nBut when Hartstein, her father, drew near amidst loud cries of\nastonishment from the listeners in the hall, and would have drawn the\nveil from her face, she sprang up vehemently, threw back the veil--and\nthey saw that she had wept--and cried in a harsh voice--\n\n           \"Well has thou solved\n            The hidden riddle.\n            With mighty wit\n            Hast won a wife,\n            Woe to thee if tenderly\n            Thou usest her not!\"\n\nAll kept silence, uneasy at these threatening unloving words. Halfred\nat length broke the stillness, he threw back his head, and shook his\nblack locks, and laughed--\"I will risk that! King Hartstein, this very\nday will I pay thee the bride's dower. When prepare we the bridal\nfeast?\"\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER V.\n\nKing Hartstein, however, wished for delay, until Hartvik and Eigil\nshould have returned from a campaign. Then their reception feast and\nthe marriage could be celebrated together.\n\nHartvik was the king's son, and Harthild's own brother; and Eigil was\nson to the king's brother, and Harthild's cousin.\n\nAnd he would willingly have taken Harthild away as his wife, but she\nhad said to him, \"If thou failest to solve my riddle, thy shorn locks\nwill cause thee affliction; and if thou solvest my riddle, and I become\nthy wife, that will cause thee still deeper affliction, for no love for\nthee dwells in my heart: and woe to him who without love wins me for\nhis wife.\"\n\nThen Eigil sadly gave it up, although he was a good riddle solver.\n\nAnd when Hartvik and Eigil were returned there soon grew to be a great\nfriendship between Halfred and Hartvik, and Halfred and Eigil, and both\nloved him so well that they said they would lay down their lives for\nhim.\n\nAnd this between Halfred and Hartvik is no great wonder, because\nHalfred always won all men's hearts.\n\nBut it may well astonish many that Eigil also should thus love him, who\nstill cherished as much love to Harthild as formerly; and who yet\nclearly saw, as all who had eyes could see, that the harsh maiden was\nquite filled with love to Halfred.\n\nAnd jealousy does not often allow it to be admitted that the\nnightingale has a more charming voice than the carrion crow.\n\nHartvik and Egil, however, loved Halfred so dearly that they begged him\nto receive them as his blood brothers.\n\nAnd on the day before the wedding feast was prepared, therefore,\nHartvik and Eigil became Halfred's blood brethren.\n\nThey stood with him, as the heathen people do, under a strip of turf,\nwhich was lifted on spear points above their heads, the two ends still\ncleaving to the ground, and they mixed the blood which flowed from\ngashes in their right arms down upon the black earth beneath their\nfeet.\n\nAnd therewith they vowed their heads for ever to the infernal gods if\never one of the blood brothers should desert the other, in danger or in\nneed. And so strongly does this oath bind, that even against his own\nkith and kin, yea even against his own father, must one blood brother\nstand by the other, even until death.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VI.\n\nOn the day after the wedding, however, Halfred rode alone into the pine\nwood. He said he wished to think, and he refused Harthild, who would\nhave ridden with him, and also his blood brethren.\n\nDarkly Harthild looked after him as he rode out of the court. But\nSudha, the beautiful daughter of the King of Halogaland, also looked\nafter him from an overhanging window, and slowly stroked her blue black\nhair back from her temples.\n\nVandrad the Skald, however, who often staid at Hartstein's Court, and\nwho was there at that time, had long cherished love for Sudha. And he\nhad often begged her freedom from King Hartstein, but in vain; the\nstern man had always denied him.\n\nAnd heretofore she had not listened unwillingly when he sang. But when\nin these days he drew near to her, and spoke of a song which he had\ncomposed in her praise, she turned away and said--\"On the lips of one\nonly have the gods laid honey.\"\n\nAnd when in the evening Halfred returned from the pinewood towards the\nroyal castle, he was leading his weary horse by the bridle, for the\nmoon shone but fitfully through storm-rent clouds, there sat upon the\nrunic-stone hard by the road a closely veiled woman, and she cried to\nhim and said--\n\n\"Halfred Hamundson, whereof on the first day of thy marriage, ridest\nthou alone in the pinewood?\"\n\n\"If thou knowest that, O wise Vala,\" said Halfred, pausing--and he\nheaved a sigh--\"then knowest thou more than Halfred Hamundson.\"\n\n\"I will tell thee,\" replied the veiled one. \"Thou hast sought a woman,\nand found what is nigher to a man, rough, harsh, and devoid of charm.\nThe Singing Swan hath paired thee with the vulture's brood. Thou\nchosest the hard flint stone, near to it lay glowing at thy feet the\nrose, exhaling fragrance towards thee.\"\n\nThen Halfred sprang upon his horse, and cried to the veiled one--\n\n\"Nobler hold I it in a woman to be too cold, than too ardent.\" And he\ndashed away.\n\nAnd only once, as he told me, he looked back. So beautiful, he said,\nhad she never before been, in the full light of day, as now in the\nmoonlight, her black eyes glittered--for she had torn off her head\ncovering--and she called after him by his name, \"Halfred,\" and her\nblue-black hair fluttered round her in the night wind like a ghostly\nveil.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VII.\n\n\nAnd when the depth of winter was passed, and the spring was come,\nHalfred sent a message to Upsala, to King Hartstein, that at the\nmidsummer tide Dame Harthild should bear a child.\n\nAnd the wise women had thrown runic rods over her seven times, and had\nlearned each time by unerring signs that the child should be a son. And\nalready was his name chosen, \"Sigurd Sigskaldson.\"\n\nAnd Halfred bade the king, and Hartvik and Eigil, and Vandred the\nSkald, and all the people from the castle at Upsala, as many as the\nships would hold, to be his guests at Hamund's hall, twenty nights\nbefore the midsummer tide.\n\nAnd there, at the birth and naming of the boy, a great feast should be\nheld, such as had never before been held in Iceland.\n\nAnd King Hartstein gave answer that he and all his people, as many as\ntwelve ships could carry, would come as bidden, to the feast.\n\nThus at the beginning of the month of roses came King Hartstein, and\nHartvik, and Eigil, and many hundred men from the castle at Upsala; and\npeople from all parts of Tiunderland.\n\nAnd among the women who came also, the first that descended from the\nship was Sudha. She had begged that she might come, out of longing to\nsee Harthild.\n\nAnd again there was close friendship between Halfred and his\nblood-brethren, Hartvik and Eigil. They shared their table and bread\nand salt.\n\nThus they waited the birth of the heir of the hall, on the midsummer\nday, and made ready a great feast in the Mead hall.\n\nRich hangings of silken and woven stuffs which Halfred had borne away\nfrom the islands of Greece were spread upon the wooden walls of the\ndrinking hall; the floor was strewn deep with rushes and clean straw,\nand the tables and benches were set out in two long rows, and one cross\nrow.\n\nOn all the pillars of the walls were hung curiously interlaced weapons,\nwhich the Viking had gathered from boarded ships, stormed castles, and\nvictorious battlefields. But on sideboards around were set out the many\ncups and horns of gold, silver, bronze, amber, and precious horn, which\nthe Sigskald had won, by singing in the halls of kings.\n\nBut straight before Halfred towered the lofty candalabrum from Greece,\nwith its seven flaming arms.\n\nEigil and Hartvik were to sit on his left hand, the guests from\nTiunderland and the other strangers on the long benches to the right,\nthe house churls and islanders on the long benches to the left of the\ndais. And the most honoured guests had even cushions for the back,\nbrought from a pillared marble house which had been burnt on the coast\nof Rumaberg.\n\nThe women, however, were not to come into the hall, but to tarry with\nHarthild, and await her hour in the chamber of the women.\n\nThis was all splendidly ordered, and Halfred himself told me that\nnever, neither as guest nor as host, had he seen such magnificent\nfestival preparations.\n\nTwo days before the feast, as Halfred, wearied with the summer heat,\nlay upon his couch after the mid-day meal, Sudha glided softly through\nthe doorway, and stood before him, and spoke--\n\n\n  \"Halfred, skill in song, victory and fame have been thine for\n    twenty years.\n   A wife hast thou had for one year--an heir shalt thou have but now.\n   But never hast thou known Freya's gift--Love's Fulness--\n   Contradict me not--thine eye shuns Dame Harthild's seeking glance;\n   And when thou dreamingly sweepest the strings of thy harp,\n    thou gazest\n   Not in Dame Harthild's cold hard face, but upwards towards\n    the stars.\n   Halfred, not in the clouds dwelleth that for which thou yearnest.\n   Not from the stars shall it float down upon thee; upon the\n    earth it wanders,\n   It is a woman, who with love's charm, with woman's magic,\n    can subdue the Singing Swan--\n   Woe to thee if thou never findest her--\n   What though thou win all fame with sword and harp--the\n    best is still denied thee.\n   Askest thou what maketh me so wise, and withal so daring?\n   Love, love's fulness for thee, thou rich yet poor Sigskald.\n   Behold, I am but a woman--a captive--but I tell thee there\n    is heroism even for women.\n   I have sworn by the infernal gods, as I crossed thy threshold,\n    that here, in Iceland, I will win thy love, or die.\"\n\n\nThen Halfred arose from his couch, and spoke--\n\n\n  \"Wisdom and madness mingled hast thou spoken. There speaks from\n    thee more than Sudha. There speaks a soul stricken of the gods.\n   Horror and compassion seize upon me. I will demand thy\n    freedom from King Hartstein. Then journey homewards to Halagoland.\n   There mayest thou find happiness in the arms of some valiant hero.\n   But here, let Dame Harthild's rights and hearth be sacred\n    unto thee. Disturb not her happiness.\"\n\n\nAnd he seized his spear and strode out. But Sudha cried after him, so\nthat he still heard her--\"Her happiness? Long has she divined her\nmisery. Soon shall she clearly perceive, the haughty one, that she is\nmore unspeakably wretched than Sudha.\"\n\nThen, the evening of the same day, she called to her Vandrad the Skald,\nwho still always cherished great love for her, to the well in the\ncourt, as though she would beg him to draw up for her from the depth\nthe heavy water bucket. This did Vandrad later, when dying, himself\ntell Halfred.\n\nBut when he had raised the bucket to the edge of the well, she lightly\nlaid a finger on his bare arm, and said--\n\n\"Vandrad, come hither to-night, just when the star Oervandil is\nmirrored in this well. Thou shall tell me all that formerly came to\npass here, about that oath on the Bragi cup.\"\n\nVandrad considered within himself, and he looked doubtingly at her.\n\nThen she said--\"Vandrad, I swear to thee by [5]Freya's throat jewels\nthat I will become thy wife when I leave this island. Wilt thou now\ncome and tell me all?\"\n\nThen Vandrad swore to do what she required.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\n\nAnd now the midsummer feast was magnificently celebrated in the hall.\nAnd there were full a thousand guests within the hall; but many\nhundreds of the servants and bondmen were camped round about the\nbuilding, in the open air.\n\nBesides the guests from Svearike, there had come from all the\nneighbouring coasts and islands many jarl's and great chieftains. Thus\nfrom distant Iceland, the kings Konal, and Kiartan from Dyflin; from\nZealand the Danish Jarl Hako, and Sveno from Lethra; then from West\nGothaland the three brothers, Arnbiorn, Arngeir, and Arnolfr; Jarls of\nthe Western Goths. There had long been a blood feud, which had been but\nnewly allayed with blood money, between these three, and the two\nbrothers Princes of East Gothaland, Helge and Helgrimr.\n\nAnd these two, and the other three, would only come with a strong\nwell-armed following, when they understood that their adversaries had\nalso been bidden to Halfred's feast.\n\nAnd Halfred had taken care that the followers of the Princes of West\nGothaland should be lodged to the right, and those of East Gothaland to\nthe left, at the back of the hall, in huts of pinewood. And a wooden\nwall with strongly closed doors divided the two encampments.\n\nBut also from other vallies of Svearik, besides Tiunderland, from\nTronland, from Herjadel, Jeutland, and Helsingaland, had come many\nguests, who had often of old been enemies to the people from\nTiunderland.\n\nThe feast, however, proceeded most joyously from daybreak even\nuntil the night. And when within the hall, and without, where the\nforeign servants were encamped, many fires and pine torches were\nkindled--before Halfred burned the seven armed candelabrum--it was at\nfirst a right jovial sun fire-feast.\n\nThe men, swinging and emptying the drinking horns, sprang over the\nflames, and the Skalds, in songs which they composed at the moment they\nrose, vied with each other in praises of Halfred and his deeds with\nhammer and harp, and of the Singing Swan, and the hall, and the feast.\n\nAnd all the foreign kings also proclaimed that never had they seen so\nlordly a midsummer feast celebrated, neither at home, nor in the halls\nof any other host.\n\nHalfred sat with a joyful heart in the seat of honour. He signed to his\nharp-bearer to bring him his silver harp, for he wished at the last, to\nrequite the laudations of the Skalds and the praises of the guests with\nthanks and a song of welcome.... And then began that catastrophe which\nwas to overwhelm Halfred and his house, and the men of Tiunderland, and\nall the guests, and many other men and women, altogether strange and\nfar away, who had never even seen or heard of Halfred and Harthild, in\nblood and fire.\n\nThat is to say, the great door of the hall, exactly opposite to the\nseat of honour opened, and Dame Harthild strode in.\n\nHaughtily erect she walked, her head thrown back. A long black mantle\nwas wrapped around her head and neck and breast, and her whole body; it\nfloated trailing after her, like the curling wave behind a ship's\nstern.\n\nAnd Halfred said to one it seemed to him, then, as if the most fearful\nof the Fates was striding through the hall.\n\nStraight up the hall she passed, followed by Sudha and her women, her\nglance fixed upon Halfred.\n\nSlowly, silently, she ascended the six steps of the dais, and paused\nstraight before Halfred at the table. Only the heavy candelabrum stood\nbetween the two.\n\nBut all the men in the hall sat speechless, and gazed up at the black\nwoman, who looked like a dark thunder cloud.\n\n\"Halfred Hamundson,\" she began--and her voice was loud, yet\ntoneless--\"Answers I demand to two questions, before these ten hundred\nhearers in thy hall. Lie not to me.\"\n\nThe blood rose to Halfred's brow, and he felt his temple veins throb\nheavily. \"If I speak or act,\" he said to himself, \"I know neither what\nI should say nor do. Therefore I will keep silence and do nothing.\"\n\nBut Harthild, with her left hand pressed upon her thigh,\ncontinued--\"Didst thou, in that first night, when I held thy hand firm\nupon my girdle, and asked thee if thou lovedst me, say Yes or No?\nAnswer me Sigskald. I and the gods know about that.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Halfred, and knitted his brows.\n\n\"And is it true, as Vandrad the Skald has sworn, that here, in this\nhall, at the Yule feast, after many horns of mead, thou didst vow, as a\nwanton wager, that before the midsummer tide, thou would break in the\nbreaker of men's wits like a stubborn horse, and that to make good\nthese boasting words thou camest to Tiunderland, and remained, as thou\ndidst lament, unwounded at sight of me.\"\n\n\"Speak the truth--lie not again--a thousand listeners hear thee--thou\nlordly son of Oski--Is it so?\"\n\nThen Halfred raged in his inmost heart, but he constrained himself, and\nreplied firmly and distinctly--\n\n\"It is as thou hast said.\"\n\nThen Harthild drew herself up yet higher, and like two serpents\nflashed, glances of fearful hatred from her eyes, as she spoke--\n\n\n   \"So be thou accursed, from the crown of thy head to the sole of thy\n foot, thou who hast deceived and disgraced a hapless woman;\n    Cursed be thy proud thoughts--Madness shall strike them;\n    Cursed be thy false eyes--Blindness shall smite them;\n    Cursed be thy lying Ups--They shall wither and smile no more;\n    Cursed be thy flattering voice--It shall be dumb;\n    Thy house and thy hall shall perish in flames--The Singing Swan\n shall burn;\n    Thy hand shall be crippled--thy hammer not strike--thy harp shall\n shatter;\n   Victory shall be denied thee in battle and in song;\n   Nothing shall any more delight thee, in which of yore thou hast\n rejoiced;\n   The sun of spring--the flowers of the forest--the fire of wine--the\n blackbird's song--the greeting of the evening star--Sleepless shall\n roll thy groaning head, and if slumber draws near to thee it shall be\n with stifling dreams.\n   Yet a twofold curse shall rend ye both, if thou winnest again a\n woman's love.\n   In madness and disease shall she perish whom thou lovest more than\n thy soul.\n   But the son whom I, wretched one, must bear, shall be his mother's\n avenger upon his father.\n   Liar's son, Scoundrel's son, Harthild's Vengeance shall his name be.\n   And one day, villain, shall he smite thee, as here, to shame thee\n before all men, my hand now strikes thee in the face.\"\n\n\nAnd she lifted high her outspread right hand, and aimed a blow over the\ntable at Halfred's head.\n\nHalfred sprang up, and to avert such a disgrace threw up his left arm.\nThen he struck the heavy seven flaming candalabrum; with a crash the\nmetal fell with all its flaming arms upon Dame Harthild's breast and\nbody, and then upon the ground.\n\nAs though struck by lightning stood the woman all in flames--mantle and\nhair blazed up. At once the fire caught the straw thickly strewn upon\nthe floor.\n\n\"King Hartstein, avenge thy unhappy child,\" shrieked Harthild, in\nagony. She believed that in rage Halfred had hurled the candalabrum\nupon her.\n\nThe king believed the same, and whilst Halfred grasped at the blazing\nwoman to rescue her, Kling Hartstein with a cry of \"Down thou\nscoundrel,\" struck him a sharp sword stroke on the forehead, so that he\nfell stunned.\n\nAnd with a second blow he would have slain him, had not Eigil and\nHartvik sprung up and quickly borne away their blood brother.\n\nThus it came to pass that from the very outset Halfred could neither\navert nor control this catastrophe--He alone could have done it.\n\nNow, however, the burning woman and the flaming straw filled everyone\nwith sudden frenzy.\n\nThe people from Tiunderland rose up in fury when they saw their king's\ndaughter fall flaming on the crackling straw; and Halfred's comrades\ndrew their swords when they saw their lord fall bleeding. And flame and\nsmoke, shrieks of women, and avenging shouts of men filled the hall.\n\nThen broke loose a fighting and devastation in the hall so gigantic,\nsay the heathen people, that the like shall never be seen again until\nthe twilight of the gods, when all demons and giants, goblins and\nelves, gnomes, menkind, and pigmies, shall slay each other, and heaven,\nearth and hell shall perish in flames.\n\nHarthild in her burning clothes, was carried out by her shrieking\nwomen. One only was missing. Sudha sprang through flames and arms to\nwhere Halfred lay on his blood-brethren's knees.\n\n\"Dead,\" she cried; \"Slain by Sudha. Then share we death, if not life.\"\nAnd she drew Halfred's dagger from his belt, and plunged it in her own\nbreast.\n\n\"Slain Halfred! by my babbling tongue. Sudha slain!\" cried Vandrad the\nSkald. \"I will avenge thee, Halfred.\"\n\nAnd he tore a casting spear from the trophies hanging on the\nflame-wreathed wooden pillars, and hurled it whistling at the temples\nof King Hartstein, so that he fell dead.\n\nWildly shouted the people of Tiunderland, and their near kindred from\nWest Gothaland, for vengeance for Harthild and King Hartstein.\n\nAnd the Jarl Ambiorn, from West Gothaland, seized in both hands a heavy\nbrazen double-handled tankard, and dashed it down on Vandrad's\nforehead, so that he fell.\n\nBut when the Princes from East Gothaland saw this, that their mortal\nfoes aided the men from Upsala, then they fell, Helgi and Helgrimr,\nwith furious blows upon both their old enemies, and the guests from\nUpsala.\n\nAnd now could none any longer give a thought to extinguishing the\nblazing straw upon the floor, or the quickly burning silken and woollen\nhangings on the walls or the wooden pillars, up which tongues of flame\nwere creeping.\n\nFor blindly now flew spears and axes, and golden and silver drinking\nhorns; and many who would have striven for peace, or trodden out the\nflames, had fallen, struck down by both sides.\n\n\"Must we alone stand idle among the strange guests at this bloody\nmidsummer feast?\" said the Danish Jarl Hako, to the Irish King Konal,\n\"so that the Skalds shall taunt us as drink valiant but battle shy. We\nhave an old strife about stolen horses. Let us fight it out here, thou\nIrish Greenpeak!\"\n\n\"Thou drunkard of Zealand,\" was the answer, \"I will quench for ever thy\nthirst and thy reviling;\" and he struck his broad short Irish knife\nthrough his teeth into his throat.\n\nThen Sveno, his brother, fell furiously upon the Irish king, and their\nfollowers, Danes and Irish, fought by themselves their own battle in\nthe forefront of the hall, and thus blocked up the door, so that no one\ncould escape from the hall into the open air.\n\nAnd those who had no weapons tore down the trophies from the pillars,\nor hurled about the heavy drinking horns, and even the flaming beams\nand blocks which already fell from the ceiling, and instead of shields\nthey defended themselves with the tables.\n\nAnd all wildly mingled fought the people of Tiunderland and Iceland, of\nWestgothaland and Eastgothaland, of Zealand and Ireland. And hardly did\nanyone know who was friend or foe; and many, many men sank down,\nwounded or burnt.\n\nAnd at last the flames had burst through the roof, and shot blazing up\ntowards heaven.\n\nAnd as the wind from above blew down upon the swelling hangings on the\nwalls, they flashed up suddenly in a brighter blaze.\n\nAnd now the highest beam fell with a crash; and thereupon rang out a\nsound as though forty harp strings had all at once uttered their dying\nwail. And it was even so, for the beam had severed in twain Halfred's\nsilver harp, which lay close by his head.\n\nAt this wailing harp cry Halfred opened his eyes, and looked around\nhim, and all the truth broke upon him. He sprang up and shouted\nthreateningly through slaughter and flames--Hartvik and Eigil protected\nhim with shield and sword--\n\n\"Hold! Peace, peace in the hall! Magic has frenzied us all! Quench,\nquench the fire which devours us all!\"\n\nAnd so great was his power over friends and foes that for a moment all\npaused.\n\nThen hark! From without there thundered on the hindmost door of the\nhall heavy axe strokes, and the cry--\n\n\"Halfred, Halfred, save thy house! Save the Singing Swan!\"\n\nWith a crash the door fell inwards, and new devastation was seen, which\nkindled afresh the momentarily smothered battle fury in the hall.\n\nHalfred looked through the doorway. The house of his forefathers, and\nthe ships in the harbour, and the Singing Swan were all wrapped in\nflames.\n\nThe followers of the princes of Westgothaland, who were lodged in the\npine huts, had first heard the din of battle, and seen the flames in\nthe hall. \"To the rescue--to the rescue of our lords,\" they shouted,\ntore down the wooden wall that divided them from the Mead hall, and\nhurried to their aid.\n\nBut then there threw themselves upon them, to hinder them, their\nhostile neighbours, the followers of the princes of Eastgothaland, who\nbeing too weak to hold the open field, retreated partly into Halfred's\ndwelling house, partly to their ships in the Fjord.\n\nWith shouts of triumph the victors followed, crowded with the fugitives\ninto Halfred's dwelling house, and stormed the ships in the bay; and\ndwelling house and ships were suddenly wrapped in flames, either set on\nfire by the combatants, or ignited by sparks and burning splinters,\nborne by the strong south wind from the roof of the Mead hall.\n\nHalfred threw one glance at his shattered harp, and the burning house\nof his fathers; then he grasped his hammer firmer, and cried--\n\n\"Come hither to me all Halfred's comrades. Quit the hall. Save the\nSwan!\"\n\nAnd with a mighty onslaught, swinging his hammer round his head, he\nburst through the ranks of the men who had already renewed the battle\nin the hall.\n\nHartvik and Eigil followed on his track, and many of his own people,\nand also of the enemy.\n\nBut those who did not leave the drinking hall with him were almost all\nat once numbered with the dead. For with a heavy crash, close behind\nHalfred, fell the whole burning roof into the hall.\n\nHalfred glanced back in his rapid course. High upwards shot the blaze,\nmingling with sound of shrieks from hundreds slain. Then all was silent\nin the midsummer feast hall.\n\nHalfred rushed on, followed by friends and foes, past his father's\nhouse. He saw the flames creeping up the pillars; within rose the din\nof raging conflict; on the threshold lay a slaughtered servant girl.\n\nSoon Halfred and his comrades reached the bay, where the battle surged\naround the high-decked ships. Many were burning. Many dragon's heads\nseemed to vomit fire and smoke.\n\nAround the Singing Swan, however, raged the battle most furiously. In\ndense masses the enemy thronged round her, wading, swimming, in boats\nand on rafts, they crowded on; others hurled spears and arrows from the\nshore at her defenders, and more than one burning arrow had struck and\nset fire to her.\n\nThe left wing of the ingeniously carved Swan was on fire; tongues of\nfire were creeping up ropes and sails--just as Halfred arrived they\ncaught the mast.\n\nThen grief and fury seized upon him. His temple veins swelled almost to\nthe size of a child's finger.\n\n\"Quench, quench the flames! All hands on deck! Save the Swan! Cut the\nanchor-cable. Put out to sea. Fight no more. I will fight for you all.\"\n\nHis faithful followers obeyed him. The seamen left off fighting, and\nlaboured only to quench the flames, in which also they soon succeeded,\nas no more arrows flew from the land, and the foe were forced to leave\nthe ship.\n\nFor Halfred raged furiously, as none had ever seen him fight. With a\nloud battle-cry he sprang upon the people of Westgothaland and\nTiunderland, and struck them down one after another.\n\nLoyally aided him Hartvik and Eigil, his blood brethren, and spared not\neven their own countrymen and kindred; but thought rather on the blood\noath which bound them more closely to Halfred than to their own\nkinsmen.\n\nAnd the foe fell back before Halfred and his comrades, from the open\nfield into the dwelling house, which was half burned down, and\nbarricaded it.\n\nAnd thus he stormed his own house, in which the people from\nWestgothaland had before overcome the house churls and the East Goths,\nand slain them all.\n\nYet a whole hour lasted the conflict. There Halfred, on the threshold\nof his house, slew the Danish Jarl Sveno, the last chieftain of the\nenemy who still lived, and pressed into the house with his men.\n\nThe people from Westgothaland, Zealand, and Tiunderland, defended\nthemselves like bears at bay. But at last they were all slain. And from\nthence Halfred returned to the Mead hall, which was still glowing, and\nsearched who there still lived.\n\nBut there, also, all were dead.\n\nAnd they found the bodies of King Hartstein, and Sudha, and of the Dane\nHako, and the two Irishmen, Konal and Kiartan, of the Eastgothic\nPrince Helge--Helgrimr had fallen on board ship--and of Arngeir and\nArnbiorn--Arnolfr had been slain in the dwelling house--and they found\nVandrad the Skald at the point of death.\n\nThen he told Halfred how Sudha had prevailed upon him to speak, and\nbegged him to forgive him the death of so many heroes. And Halfred held\nhis hand until he was dead.\n\nBut Dame Harthild's body they did not find, although many of her women\nlay burnt or slain in the dwelling-house.\n\nBut many bodies were so burnt and charred they could not be recognised.\n\nAnd then they turned their search to the ships.\n\nAnd all the ships of the foreign guests were burnt, and all those of\nthe Icelanders which lay in the bay. For at the last, by reason of\nHalfred's furious attack, no one had thought any more about\nextinguishing them.\n\nAnd Halfred, with his trumpet, hailed the Singing Swan, which floated\nsaved in the moonlight, and went on board with his little troop.\n\nAnd there lay slain many hundreds of Halfred's Icelanders,\n\nThe foreign guests, however, who had come to the midsummer feast, lay\nall all dead, save only Hartvik and Eigil.\n\nAnd Halfred counted when he called all hands before the mast still\nseventy men alive.\n\nAll the rest had fallen in that one midsummer night. And there fell\nafter that wild tumult an awful stillness upon land and sea. And sad\nand silent floated the Singing Swan, with scorched sails, upon the\nFjord.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER IX.\n\nAnd Halfred has sunk into deep deep silence. Since the fight had ended,\nand he had heard Vandrad's dying words, he had not spoken a word.\n\nBut when it was full daylight the Singing Swan drew near the land, and\nthe men came ashore.\n\nSilently Halfred signed to his sailing comrades to carry out all the\nbodies from the drinking hall, the dwelling-house, and the ships; and\nto collect them altogether on the shore. He had seven funeral piles\nerected, and upon these all the dead were burned with their weapons.\nThe ashes, however, of friends and foes Halfred ordered them to mingle.\n\nAnd these he poured himself into a great stone-lined grave which he had\nhad dug on the shore, hard by the water line. And he had earth heaped\nthickly upon them, and a huge black block of stone which had once been\nthrown out of Hekla rolled thereon. And this cost many days work.\n\nBut Halfred spoke not. And all through the nights he sat upon the grave\nand looked now upwards to the stars of the summer night, now downwards\nrigidly upon the earth, and the stone grave. And gently gently he\noftimes shook his head.\n\nBut he spoke no word.\n\nAnd when after seven nights the sun arose, Hartvik and Eigil drew near\nto him, as he sat upon the stone, and then Hartvik spoke--\n\n\n\"Halfred, my blood brother, a great calamity has befallen to thee, to\nme, to us. Father and sister and many friends have I lost, and Eigil\nhas also lost many who were dear to him. We must bear it, all three.\nCome, Halfred, Sigskald, arouse thyself! This silence and brooding is\nevil. Dwelling-house and Mead hall the fire has burnt--the axe will\nbuild them up. Harps, there are many still upon the earth, and the\nSinging Swan spreads out her hardly singed pinions. Come, Halfred,\ndrink! Here I have brought thee from the Greek spoils of the Singing\nSwan a cup of Chios wine, which thou ever lovedst. Drink, speak, and\nlive!\"\n\n\nHalfred stood up with a sigh, took the cup from Hartvik's hand, and\npoured the wine slowly upon the grave; the earth drank it greedily in.\n\n\n\"Come hither again about midnight. Then will I give ye an answer. I\ncannot even yet think clearly. Once more will I ask the gods who dwell\nin the stars if they even yet deny me an answer.\"\n\n\nAnd he sat down again upon the stone, and covered his face with his\nhands.\n\nAnd when about midnight the two came, Halfred pointed towards the\nheavens--\n\n\n   \"There are so many thousand thousand stars, but they are all dumb to\n me.\n    Unceasingly, for seven days and nights, have I asked myself, and\n asked the stars, wherefore have the Gods allowed this awful thing to\n happen?\n    Is it a crime that I vowed a vow, such as many which are vowed in\n the north?\n    Hundreds of women had heard it without resentment.\n    Is it my crime that Dame Harthild was differently minded?\n    And it was no lie that I bore love to her, on that night.\n    Love's fulness truly it was not--as Sudha named it.\n    That may be. Never knew I love's fulness.\n    And be it so. If the Gods hate me for an evil deed, wherefore do\n they not punish me alone?\n    Wherefore let others--so many others--suffer and atone for\n _my_ sin?\n    Wherefore should King Hartstein perish, and many other princes,\n and thousands of men from all coasts and islands?\n    Wherefore should Dame Harthild perish, whom they would have\n avenged, and our unborn son?\n    How have all these sinned? Answer me, ye two, if ye know more than\n do I and the stars?\"\n\n\nBut his blood brethren were silent, and Halfred continued--\n\n\n   \"Yet there must be Gods!\n    Who has else bound the giants, calmed the sea, levelled the earth,\n arched the heavens, and strewn the stars? Who else guides the battle?\n and how, after death, come mighty heroes to Valhalla, and the evil to\n the dark serpent hell?\n    For that awful fearful thought which already from afar has come\n darkly into my mind, that perhaps no Gods live! I will think it no\n more.\n   There must be Gods. I cannot cannot think otherwise, and my\n throbbing brain is driven to frenzy.\n    And if there are Gods, they must be also good, and wise, and\n mighty, and just.\n    Else it would be indeed yet more frightful to think that beings,\n mightier and wiser than mankind, delighted in the misery of men,\n like an evil urchin who for sport impales a captured beetle.\n    This, therefore, one dare not think,--neither, indeed,--that\n there are no Gods, or that there are evil Gods.\n    And therefore will I in devout submission endure this awful calamity,\n waiting till, in the course of years, I guess this riddle also. So hard\n an one was never yet set before me.\n    But ye, ye faithful ones, who stood by me to the death, and spared\n not your own kindred, and have lost your nearest through me; ye will I\n never forsake, all my life long; and great gratitude will I bear ye,\n and my dearest shall ye be for evermore. For ye alone will I live.\"\n\n\nThen spake Hartvik--\n\n\n\"Not thus must thou speak, Halfred. The harp thou shalt again strike\nvictoriously, the hammer shalt thou again joyously wield under the blue\nheavens of Greece. The blood of the vine shalt thou quaff, and a woman\nmore enchanting than----\"\n\nThen Halfred sprang up from the black stone--\n\n\n  \"Silence, Hartvik: Thou blasphemest.\n   Who is stricken so heavily as I, by the hatred of the Gods, who\n live and are just, he stands as a lightning-blasted tree by the way.\n Birds sing not upon it, the dew moistens it not, the sun kisses it\n not.\n   How should I sing and laugh, drink and kiss, through whom hath\n fallen upon so many thousand men and women utter destruction, or the\n sorrow of death for evermore?\n   No, otherwise have I vowed to myself.\n   Long did I doubt if I still could live, after such a calamity as\n the Gods have laid upon this head, and I could not, did I not believe\n in good Gods, and tarry for the solving of this riddle.\n   But joy and happiness have no more part in Halfred Hamundson. I\n renounce them for ever.\"\n\n\nAnd he kneeled down, and took from his breast pouch a leathern bottle,\nwhich was filled with white ashes. And slowly he strewed them all over\nhis long flowing black locks, and his face, and breast, and body.\n\n\n  \"Hear me, ye good all ruling Gods, and ye glittering all seeing\n stars of heaven; and of men-kind upon earth, Hartvik and Eigil, my\n blood brethren!\n   Here I renounce, on account of the awful calamity which I have\n drawn down upon wife and child, and many hundred friends and\n strangers, I renounce for ever happiness and joy, song, wine, and\n the love of women.\n   To the dead alone, slain for my crime, with whose ashes I here\n cover myself upon their grave mound, do I belong; and among the\n living, to my faithful blood brethren.\n   And if I break this solemnly sworn vow, then be Dame Harthild's\n curse wholly fulfilled.\"\n\n\nAnd the stars and his friends in silence heard his vow.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER X.\n\nAnd Halfred kept his word.\n\nYear after year passed away--he told me he no longer knew how often.\nMeanwhile midsummer returned--and Halfred lived a life which was as a\nliving death.\n\nHartvik and Eigil commanded the Singing Swan, and ruled their sailing\ncomrades. They chose the design, the port, and the course of their\nvoyages. Halfred without word, wish, or choice, let everything be.\n\nOnly, when the south wind grew too strong for Hartvik's hand, Halfred\nstrode silently to the helm, and steered until the sea was calm again.\n\nAlso, when Vikings attacked the ship, Halfred had forbidden that the\nSinging Swan, either by sea or land, should do harm to any--and the\ndanger became overwhelming, Halfred silently--he raised the battle cry\nno more--grasped his hammer, and dashed among the enemy until they gave\nway.\n\nBut he wielded his hammer only with his left hand--his shield he had\nlaid aside--and neither with helmet nor mail did he protect his head\nand breast.\n\nAnd throughout the whole year he wore the garment which on that\nmidsummer night smoke, flame and blood had darkly dyed.\n\nWhen the Singing Swan drew near the land--the black flame marks on the\nwings none were allowed to efface--and Hartvik and Eigil and the\nsailors went to the halls of kings, Halfred stayed lying upon deck, and\nkept guard over the ship.\n\nAnd he drank only water out of a cup of the bitter juniperwood.\n\nEigil brought once, from a king's halls where the Sigskald of yore had\noften been a guest, a splendid golden harp, which the queen, in\ngreeting to her old friend, had sent as a present.\n\nBut as the ship turned out of the bay the harp, with a light rush,\nglided into the sea.\n\nAnd once Halfred lay at midsummer in Iceland, on the shore by the black\nstone--for every midsummer night he spent alone there, his friends must\nremain on the ship--and looked very very sad. For his face had grown\nvery pale.\n\nThen there came a woman, and a wonderfully beautiful maiden, who was\nher daughter, and stood before him; and he turned away his face, but\nthe mother spoke--\n\n\n\"I know thee, even yet, Halfred Sigskald. I can never forget thy face,\nalthough the smile of Oski no longer plays thereon, and though the\nfurrows on thy brow are deeply scored as with a plough. This maiden\ndids't thou, fifteen years ago, lay in my arms a sleeping child. See\nhow beautiful she has become, as no other in all Iceland. And this\nwreath of summer flowers has she twined for thee. Set it upon thy pale\nbrow, and thou shalt be healed, for gratitude has woven it.\"\n\n\nThen Halfred sprang up, took the wreath from the beautiful blushing\nmaiden's hand, lifted with mighty force the huge block upwards, threw\nthe wreath under it, and let the black stone fall heavily in its place\nagain.\n\nThe mother and maiden, weeping, departed.\n\nAnd during these years Halfred spoke hardly to any, save Hartvik and\nEigil, and to them only when he must.\n\nAnd what he said was weak and mournful.\n\nAnd his voice had become very low.\n\nAnd he was very kind to everyone, above all to those below him.\n\nAnd often in the night the sailors heard him sigh, and turn himself\nupon the straw bed upon the deck, where always, even in the cold\nwinter, he lay under the stars.\n\nAnd they heard him often speak when there was no one at hand with whom\nhe could talk.\n\nAnd at table he rested his head upon his left hand, and kept his eyes\ncast downwards, or looked into the far far distance.\n\nAnd he almost never complained, only he often shook his head gently,\nand pressed very very often his left hand upon his breast, and said\nmany times--\n\n\"The fresh air of heaven shuns me. I cannot breathe. If I will breathe\nI must sigh. My heart is almost crushed.\"\n\nAnd Hartvik and Eigil said one to the other--\"He is ill.\"\n\nAnd once, when they sailed to Greece, Hartvik secretly called a\nphysician--they are very skilful there--and the physician watched\nHalfred many days and nights, and said--\n\n\"It is a heavy malady under which this poor man suffers.\n\n\"And many have already quietly died of it, or sunk into madness.\n\n\"We call it 'Melancholy.'\"\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER XI.\n\n\nAnd the Singing Swan sailed again into the western seas, in the late\nspring and early summer, at the time which the Latins call \"Mensus\nMadius.\"\n\nAnd because of the long voyage the provisions were exhausted, and the\nship also needed rest and repairing.\n\nAnd Halfred's blood brethren said to him, when they came into the\nwaters of the island of Hibernia--\n\n\"Both men and stores need caring for: we will land at King Thorul's sea\ncastle, and provide all that we need on board. Far famed is King\nThorul's hall; there they have great skill on the harp. Come with us to\nthe city; rejoice thy heart in human fellowship, for there thou cans't\nnot, as heretofore, lie upon the ship. Even to the Singing Swan will\nmany people come, workmen and traders, and thou wouldst not be alone\nunder thy stars. Shall we not steer for the green island?\"\n\nAnd Halfred nodded, and Hartvik joyfully turned the helm sharp to the\nwest.\n\nWhen, however, they saw the towers of Thorul's hall rise from the waves\nin the morning light, Halfred, with his own hand, lowered the smaller\nboat, which lay fastened on the deck near the helm, and said--\n\n\"When ye have rejoiced yourselves at King Thorurs court, and have\nprovided for the ship, seek me, after twenty nights, on yonder small\nrocky island.\"\n\nAnd he took arrow, and bow, and fishing hook, sprang into the boat, and\nrowed to the island.\n\nBut, the Singing Swan sailed further to the west.\n\nAnd Halfred landed upon the small rocky island; he found a fitting bay,\nand drew his boat high up upon the white sand of the shore.\n\nAnd then there came floating to him on the air something which was\nstrange and yet well known to him. Only under the golden stars of\nGreece and Rome had he ever heretofore enjoyed the intoxication of such\nfragrance.\n\nThere is, that is to say, a flower of the delicate hue of a maiden's\ncheek, \"Rosa\" the Latins call it, and its fragrance is as the kiss of\npure maiden lips.\n\nAnd this flower had the Roman heroes, so long as they were powerful in\nthese western lands, carefully tended in their houses and gardens. Long\nsince, however, had the Roman heroes vanished, their stately dwellings\nwere abandoned and ruined, their gardens grown wild.\n\nAnd wild also had grown the maiden tinted flower which they call Rosa,\nand had spread all over the island, and flourished luxuriantly\neverywhere, and breathed forth a strong intoxicating perfume.\n\nOn these small islands which lie round about the great western island\nof Hibernia, the air is always mild; the snow seldom there remains\nlying on the land, and only slightly, and for a short time are the\nstreams frozen.\n\nAnd the singing birds which elsewhere retreat before the frost, rest\nfor the winter in these retreats, where meadows, shrubs, and trees,\nremain green even in the severest seasons. For it rains often there,\nand moist is the breath of the billows rolling around.\n\nAnd the heathen people, therefore, call these islands \"Baldur's\nIslands,\" for Baldur they name the God of the spring dawning.\n\nAnd as Halfred climbed up the hill from the shore, all the underwood\nand sweet-springing thorns were in full bloom; white thorn and red\nthorn and black thorn and the wild roses.\n\nAnd also the many splendid fruit trees which the Roman heroes had\nbrought with them from the south and the east, were in full bloom.\n\nAnd from every shrub and tree resounded the sweet tones of the grey\nbrown singing bird, which the Latins call \"Luscinia,\" the Greeks\n\"Philomela,\" but we, the \"Nightingale.\"\n\nAnd Halfred strode upwards and inland, by the side of a clear rapid\nstream, which flowed over white pebbles, through light green copsewood.\nOn the height he came to a transparent copse of alders, young beeches,\nand slender white birches. There lovely broad-winged butterflies\nflitted over the beautiful flowers in the sunny glades. Deep in the\nthicket sang the thrush. The tops and pliant boughs of the birches\nnodded and waved.\n\nAnd then there came to him, borne on the morning wind, yet other sounds\nthan the song of the nightingale, far clearer and softer, as from the\nlightly-touched strings of a harp; but which sounded far more beautiful\nthan any harp playing, either of his own or any other Skald, which he\nhad ever heard.\n\nAnd from high above, as if from heaven, the tones appeared to come.\nHalfred followed the sounds, which powerfully moved and allured him.\n\nNo sound since the last dying shriek of his harp had reached his soul\nthrough his ears. These harp tones aroused his soul. He believed that\nelves or Bragi, the song God, were harping in the air.\n\nHe wished not to scare the singer, but to listen. Softly he passed on,\nchoosing his steps; the wood-grass betrayed him not, for it was soft,\nlong, and thick.\n\nHe had now come quite near to the sound, yet still he saw not the\nsinger. Cautiously he parted the thick white thorn bushes, and\nperceived then a small green mound, upon which stood in a circle six\nbeeches. But the seventh, the tallest, stood in the centre, and towered\nabove them all; and around its trunk wound an ornamental staircase made\nof white wood; and made of the same white wood there was a slight\nplatform fitted in where the broad branches of the beech spread\nthemselves out. The railing of both staircase and platform was\ningeniously carved.\n\nFrom this airy bower floated down the wonderful tones.\n\nHalfred drew nearer, and spied through the branches and the crevices of\nthe platform. His heart throbbed high with amazement, awe, and\nyearning.\n\nThere he saw the player.\n\nOn the railing leaned a boy who was wonderfully beautiful, so\nbeautiful, Halfred said to me, that never had he seen such beauty upon\nearth--so beautiful as the elves must be, in which the heathen people\nbelieve.\n\nHe was altogether white--his slender face was white as the stone which\nthe Greeks call \"Alabaster;\" the folded garment which reached from his\nneck to his knees was white, and white were the leathern shoes upon his\nfeet.\n\nBut the eyes and hair of the boy were like gold.\n\nAnd Halfred said to me that the eyes were the golden brown of the\neagle's eyes. In the shining hair, however, which a net of the same\ncolour confined, instead of a hat, played hither and thither, bright\nsun-tinted gleams, as though a sunbeam had lost itself therein, and now\nvainly sought to find an outlet.\n\nAnd the boy played upon a small three-sided stringed instrument, such\nas only the Skalds of Hibernia carry, and played a wholly unknown\nmelody.\n\nAnd he played and sang so beautifully, that Halfred had never yet heard\nsuch playing and singing; mournful and yet blissful at the same time,\nwas the melody, like the pain of yearning, which yet for no pleasure of\nthe earth would the heart resign.\n\nAnd Halfred told me that for the first time since that midsummer night\na warm breath passed again over his soul.\n\nAnd the beautiful boy in the airy bower enchained his eyes, and the\nmournful yearning song entranced his soul.\n\nAnd for the first time, for many, many years, his breast could heave\nwith a full drawn breath.\n\nAnd tears filled his eyes, and restored and healed him, and made him\nyoung once more, like cool dew upon the heath after a burning sun.\n\nAnd at the close of every two lines the words of the song rang\nharmoniously together, like--and yet again not altogether entirely\nlike--as though two voices sought each other in sound and echo.\n\nOr as when man and woman, one and yet two, are folded together in a\nkiss.\n\nThe boy sang in the soft lisping Irish language, which Halfred well\nknew. But that closing concord had he never heard, and it resounded far\nmore pleasingly upon the ear than did the dead consonant staves of the\nSkalds.\n\nAnd this was the boy's song,--\n\n\n     \"On light slender branches blowing\n      White rose yearns through May's young bloom--\n      Sun God, 'tis for thee I'm glowing,\n      When wilt thou, thy bright face showing,\n      Quaff full deep my fresh perfume?\n      When wilt thou, for ardour sighing,\n      Greet my flowers in trembling bliss?\n      Come, and must I rue thee dying,\n      Leave within my chalice lying,\n      Fiery sweet, thy fervid kiss.\"\n\nHere closed the boy's song and playing with a clear resounding chord on\nthe strings.\n\nAnd as soon as he ceased, and had hung his harp on the boughs, lo!\nthere came flying from the nearest shrub two snow-white doves, which\nlighted one on the right, the other on the left shoulder of the boy,\nwho smiling stroked their heads, and slowly, thoughtfully, with\nstately, and yet almost timed step, came down the white wooden stairs,\nand stood upon the beautiful flowery turf of the greenwood glade.\n\nHalfred dreaded that he might terrify the gentle harper if he stepped\nsuddenly out of the thicket before him.\n\nTherefore he called to him first, from a distance, in a soft voice,\nslowly drawing nearer.\n\n\"Hail, gentle boy! If thou art mortal, may the Gods be gracious to\nthee. If thou art thyself a God, or as I surmise one of the light\nelves, then be not ungracious to me, a mortal man.\"\n\nThen the boy turned slowly towards him, without seeming to be\nterrified, or even surprised, and as Halfred now drew nearer, he said\nin a melodious vibrating voice--\n\n\"Welcome, Halfred. Art thou come at last? I have tarried long for\nthee.\"\n\nAnd he offered him both hands; the glance of the golden eyes sinking\ndeep into Halfred's soul.\n\nHalfred, however, dared not to touch those hands. He felt, from the\nvery depths of his being, a quickening warmth uprise, and send rippling\nthrough body and soul a quiver of delight--of joy in surpassing\nbeauty--but also of holy awe, as in the presence of gods or spirits;\nfor he had no longer any doubt that it was no earthly being who stood\nbefore him.\n\nVoice and breath almost failed him as he asked--\n\n\"Who hath proclaimed to thee Halfred's coming, and name!\"\n\n\"The moonlight.\"\n\n\"Then art thou indeed, as I had already perceived, the prince of the\nlight elves, to whom moon and stars speak words. Be gracious to me, O\nloveliest of the Gods.\"\n\nThen the boy smiled. \"I am a child of earth, like thyself, Halfred.\nDraw nearer. Take my hands.\"\n\n\"But who art thou, if thou art mortal!\" asked Halfred, still\nhesitating.\n\n\"Thoril, King Thorul's orphan grandchild.\"\n\n\"And wherefore dwellest thou here alone, on this small island, as\nthough hidden, and not in King Thorul's hall?\"\n\n\"He dreamed thrice that danger threatened me, in the month when the\nwild roses blow; a strange ship which should come into his harbour\nwould carry me away, never to be seen again.\n\n\"To render me quite safe against this danger he sent me here to this\nsmall outlying island, at which, because of its circling cliffs, no\nship can land. Only Moengal, his ancient armour-bearer, and his wife,\nmy foster-mother, are with me; yonder, in that small wooden house,\nbehind the beech mound, we live. But so long as the dear lord shines,\nand the gay butterflies flit over the flowers, I tarry here in hidden\nairy bower.\"\n\n\"But, thou wonderful boy, if thou art really a child of earth, how\ncould the moon reveal to thee my coming and my name?\"\n\n\"I sleep not in the moonlight, because it entices me out and upwards.\nIt lifts me by force from my couch, and upwards to itself. With closed\neyes, they say, I wander then away on the narrowest ridges of the roof;\nand far away, through forest and mountain, I see what shall happen in\nthe future, and the distance.\n\n\"Carefully they guarded me, therefore, in the king's hall. But here, the\nclear moon looks freely through the rifts in our cottage roof.\n\n\"And I saw, seven nights ago, a ship, with a swan on the prow, that drew\nnearer and nearer. On the deck lay sleepless a dark-bearded man, with a\nnoble countenance. 'Halfred,' his two friends called him.\n\n\"And ever nearer floated the sailing Swan. But when, one cloudy night,\nthe moon shone not upon my pillow, and my eyes could not see the ship,\nand the man, then yearning seized upon me for that noble countenance.\nAnd I laid my pillow and my head, since then, ever carefully under the\nfull flood of the moonlight. And night after night I gazed again on\nthat lofty forehead and these palid temples.\n\n\"But still more beautiful and lordly art thou, than thy dream picture;\nand never have I seen a man to equal thee.\"\n\n\"But thou,\" cried Halfred, seizing both the singer's hands, \"art like\nBaldur in spring beauty, gentle boy.\n\n\"Never have I seen such perfect charm in youth or in maiden. Like\nsunshine upon chilled limbs, like Chios wine through parched throat,\nflows thy beauty through my eyes deep into my soul. Thou art as the\nblackbird's song and the wood flowers: as the evening star in golden\nclouds; thou art as the most wonderful song which ever resounded from\nthe lips of a Skald; thyself, as thou livest and movest, thou art pure\npoetry.\n\n\"O Thoril, golden boy, how gentle thou art! how thou hast quickened my\ngrief-worn heart. O Thoril, leave me never again!\n\n\"Take up once more thy magic harp; uplift once more that sweet song,\nwhich has awakened my soul from the sleep of death.\n\n\"O come, let me lay my heavy head upon thy knee, and gaze in thy sunny\nwondrous face, while thou tunest thy harp, and playest and singest.\"\n\nAnd thus they both did.\n\nAnd trustfully flew one of the doves from Thoril's hand to Halfred's\nbroad shoulder, and cooed lovingly to the other.\n\nAnd when the song was ended, Halfred seized again the two hands of the\nboy, and drew them slowly slowly over his forehead, and his moist eyes.\n\nAnd it all was as it stands written in the sacred books of the Jews, of\nthe King full of sadness and heaviness, who could only be healed by the\nharp-playing of the son of Jesse.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER XII.\n\nAnd this lasted many days; and upon Halfred's forehead the lines and\nfurrows disappeared, one after another. And once more he could draw a\ndeep full breath without sighing.\n\nAnd he carried his head again proudly erect, when he did not purposely\nbend down to look into the golden eyes of the boy, which ever again and\nagain he did.\n\nAnd so much did Halfred dread to lose Thoril again, that he never left\nhis side the live-long day. And because Thoril's couch and sleeping\nchamber were, as he said, so small that Halfred could not share them,\nhe lay before the door upon the threshold.\n\nNevertheless he still could not sleep; but now, because with ardent\nyearning he listened to the breathing of the sleeper. And with the\nearliest dawn of morning he would rouse Thoril from sleep and his\nsleeping chamber.\n\nAnd it seemed as if the old gift of Oski was given back to Halfred,\nthe winning of all hearts. For the two guardians of the boy, who\nfull of mistrust had seen the strange man approach their cottage,\nholding Thoril's hand--the ancient Moengal had rushed at him with a\nspear--were at once gentle and won, when he begged, with the old smile\nof Oski--\"Let me be healed at Thoril's golden eyes.\"\n\nBut on the thirtieth day--the time when the Singing Swan should come\nfor him was long passed, but Halfred thought not of that--the two went\nout with hooks and lines to catch fish. For Moengal's provisions were\nexhausted.\n\nIn the midst of the island lay a dark lake, surrounded by steep high\ncliffs. But from the lake a streamlet flowed to the open sea. In a\nsmall boat they could row upon this lake, and down the streamlet to the\nsea. And there were many splendid fish called silver salmon in the\nlake, and in the stream, and even down in the salt sea.\n\nAnd Halfred and Thoril rowed over the lake the whole morning, and laid\nground hooks and nets.\n\nAnd when, towards mid-day, the heat burned more and more fiercely down\nupon them, Halfred said--\n\n\"Come away from this shadeless depth. There above, on the cliff, I see\nfalling the glittering spray of a silver rill--amidst alders, amidst\nwild roses it springs. There above, it is cool and shady. Easily shall\nwe find a grotto in the rock. I long for that fresh spring water. And\nthere above, to the left, nod dark sweet berries--they quench the\nthirst, and young boys love them. Let us climb up. I will gladly aid\nthee.\"\n\nAnd slowly they climbed the steep face of the cliff. Thoril now aided,\nnow followed by Halfred.\n\nThen there floated to them, half-way up to the fountain, a strong\nperfume from a hollow linden tree, like wine, but it was wild honey\nwhich the wood-bees had gathered there.\n\nAnd Thoril dipped his forefinger deep in the bright thick mixture, and\nlaid it upon Halfred's lips, and smiled at him, and said--\n\n\"Take it. It is very sweet.\"\n\nAnd most enchanting he looked.\n\nThen Halfred exclaimed--\n\n\"Such honey, so say the people, the Gods have laid upon my lips. Try if\nit is true.\"\n\nAnd he suddenly clapped Thoril's head, which was bent down towards him,\nwith both hands, and kissed him on his full lips.\n\nThen both started asunder. A burning glow shot through Halfred's frame.\nBut Thoril turned away his face, quivering slightly, and rapidly\nclimbed up the cliff.\n\nHalfred paused, and drew a deep breath--\n\nThen he followed.\n\n\"See, Thoril,\" cried Halfred halting, \"this cavern, hollowed by the\nelves in the rock. The thick thorn bushes, with the perfumed red\nflowers, almost hide the entrance; and see there, how the brown\nnightingale on her nest guards the small doorway, and how the honey\nbees swarm around. Here will we stop and rest as we descend, when we\nhave drunk above.\"\n\nBut Thoril made no answer, and climbed more quickly upwards.\n\nThey had still some fifty paces to climb upwards to the edge of the\ncliff whence the spring water fell in silver spray. Halfred was\nsurprised that henceforward the boy went steadily on, turning his back\nto him, and if he sought to aid him in climbing, held on his course\nwithout looking round.\n\nFiercely beat the noontide down upon the cliff; all around was deep\nsilence; only blue flies darted buzzing through the sunshine, and from\nhigh in the heavens sounded often the shrill cries of soaring falcons,\nwhich with outspread pinions circled over their heads.\n\nThey had now mounted so high that far away over the small island they\ncould see, on three sides, beneath and around them, the blue sea\nappear.\n\nAnd the sea encircled the blooming island with its dark steel-blue arm,\nlike a mail-clad hero a blooming women.\n\nBut from the far west drew near a white sail.\n\nAt last they had reached the height. Thoril stood above, hard by the\nwaterfall, where scarcely could a pair of human feet find standing room\nupon the wet slippery crumbling stone.\n\nBeneath him, some five feet lower, Halfred halted, and looked towards\nhim. \"Give me to drink, I am parched with thirst,\" he cried to him.\n\nAnd Thoril drew from his fishing pouch a curved, silvery shining,\nmother of pearl shell. He raised himself on tiptoe, filled the shell to\nthe brim, and turned to reach it down to Halfred. Then his foot slipped\non the polished stone, vainly he tried to save himself, spreading out\nhis arms on the bare rock wall. Halfred saw him falling downwards,\nstraight upon himself, and opened wide his strong arms to receive the\nlight burden. But lo!--a miracle. In the rapid fall the buckle broke\nwhich fastened over the breast Thoril's white linen garment; wide\noutspreading, down over the shoulders, fell the garment; at the same\nmoment fell the net which confined the golden hair--a rich flood of\nwaving tresses spread themselves over the shining neck and swelling\nbreast.\n\n\"A woman art thou? a maiden?\" shouted Halfred exultingly. \"Thanks to\nye, O stars. Yes; this is Love's fullness.\"\n\nAnd the beautiful maiden hid her glowing cheeks in Halfred's neck.\n\nWith a few strides he bore his light burden down to the grotto they had\npassed in climbing, and bending the branches of the rose bushes aside\nplaced her safely within its shelter. The nightingale, which there sat\nsinging on her nest, flew only to a short distance; and then returned\nand sang and warbled unceasingly. And the bees flew humming among the\nwild roses.\n\nAnd when the crimson glow of the evening sun shone over the island\nHalfred and Thoril descended the cliff. And now the girl's face was\ninfinitely more beautiful than of yore. She wore her hair no longer in\nthe net, but waving freely, so that like a mantle spun of threads of\nsunny gold it covered her from her throat to her knees. And instead of\nthe lost buckle a small spray of the thorn bush, with a full blown\nrose, fastened her garment over the breast.\n\nThus, hand in hand, they descended to the lake, and then Thora took\nfrom the boat her three-sided harp, and thus they wandered down by the\nstreamlet which flowed from the lake to the sea, and on to the bay,\ntowards the west.\n\nAnd the ship, which from the west had held her course towards the\nisland, was the Singing Swan.\n\nThere, at a short distance, she now lay at anchor in the bay; her sails\nshining brightly in the evening light. And the ship's boat glided over\nthe water towards the shore, to bring Halfred and the smaller boat,\nrowed by Hartvik and Eigil.\n\nAnd the blood brethren sprang on shore, and marvelled greatly, when\nthey saw Halfred stand there, hand in hand with a wonderfully beautiful\nwoman. Silently their glances questioned him.\n\nBut Halfred spoke, twining his arms round the slender girl--\n\n\"This is Thora the golden-eyed. King Thorul's daughter.\n\n\"She was hidden from me here, and clad in boy's clothing that I might\nnot find her.\n\n\"Nevertheless I have found her, according to the course of the stars and\nthe will of the Gods--Love her as myself--for she is my wife.\"\n\n\n\n\n                             CHAPTER XIII.\n\n\nAnd now it was very wonderful to see what a wholly different man\nHalfred had became since he had won Thora.\n\nHe threw off his tattered clothing, and clad himself in the most costly\nroyal raiment of scarlet and rich gold, which lay stored away as a\nspecial treasure among the spoils of the Singing Swan.\n\nHe quaffed the sparkling Chios wine from a silver cup, and eagerly\npledged Thora in Freya's love.\n\nHe played often upon her harp, and sang new songs far more beautiful\nand ardent, and moving according to a melody which he invented, and\ncalled \"Thora's melody.\"\n\nAnd his youth seemed to be given back to him, for the deep furrows\nvanished from his forehead, his eyes, which had always been cast down,\nas though he revolved the past, or his own thoughts, now looked\nbrightly upwards again, and around his lips again played joyously the\nsmile of Oski.\n\nAnd he stirred not night or day from his young wife's side; and was\nnever weary of stroking her long golden hair, or looking deep into her\ngolden joyfully glistening eyes.\n\nBut in the night he often held her high aloft in his arms, and silently\nshowed her to the silent stars.\n\nAnd he had himself seized the helm, to turn the Singing Swan towards\nthe south, for he said, \"Thora shall see the islands of the blest, in\nthe blue Grecian waters, where marble statues, white and slender as\nherself, look out from among evergreen laurels.\"\n\nAnd the flame marks on the Swan's wings were effaced, and mast and\nspars must always be wreathed with flowers, for Thora loved flowers.\n\nBut the young wife had eyes for Halfred alone. She spoke but few words;\nbut with sweet smiles she often whispered--\n\n\"Yes, verily, thou art the Son of Heaven. Mortal men, such as I have\noften seen in my father's hall, could never be at once so strong and so\ngentle. Thou art like the sea a furious irresistible God, and withal a\nlovely dreaming child.\"\n\nAnd when she glided across the ship, all in snow white garments, and\nwith her golden flowing hair, the men on the rowing benches sat with\noars suspended, and Hartvik, at the helm, forgot to guide the ship's\ncourse, and followed her steps with wondering eyes.\n\nAnd when they drew near to land, and the people saw her hovering on the\nwings of the Singing Swan--where she loved to stand--they brought\nofferings of flowers, for they believed that Frigg, or Freya, had\nsailed in to visit them.\n\nAnd Halfred told me that she grew more beautiful from day to day.\n\nAnd in this wise passed four times seven nights.\n\nAnd Halfred was so infatuated and absorbed in Thora, that he did not in\nthe least observe what was brewing among the sailors, or how his blood\nbrethren, who held themselves aloof from him, whispered together.\n\nHe heard once, as he remembered afterwards that Hartvik whispered to\nEigil, \"No I tell thee. He will never do it himself, or by free will.\nTherefore the physician must by force burn out the wound from the\nsufferer.\"\n\nHe neither noticed nor understood these words. But soon afterwards he\nunderstood them.\n\nOne clear moonlight night Halfred and Thora had already sought their\ncouch in their chamber between the decks, from whence a small gangway\nand flight of steps led upwards, and Thora had fallen asleep. Ere\nHalfred fell asleep however, it seemed to him as though he detected\nthat the Singing Swan was, very slowly certainly, but perceptibly\nturning. She groaned, as though resisting the pressure of the helm; and\nhe thought that he heard, through the open gangway, the sound of many\nsteps upon the deck, and of whispering voices, and now and again of\nweapons clashing.\n\nInstinctively he glanced towards the head of the couch; where his\nhammer hung, guarding his bride's pillow. The loop was empty. The\nhammer was missing.\n\nQuickly, but lightly, so as not to wake the sleeper, he sprang up the\nnarrow stairs. He was just in time. Hartvik and Eigil were in the act\nto close the small trap door, which fastened over the gangway with a\nbolt, and thus confine the pair between decks. There, now, stood\nHalfred, his right foot on the deck, his left on the highest step.\nHartvik and Eigil started up, and drew back a pace. Hartvik was leaning\nupon Halfred's hammer. The ship's crew stood armed in a half circle\nbehind him. The helm also was surrounded by armed men, and had been\nturned. The ship no longer sailed towards the south-east, but held west\nnorth-west, and the sails were half-reefed.\n\n\"What do ye here my blood brethren?\" said Halfred, softly--for he\nthought of Thora--and was more amazed than angry. \"Are ye mad, or have\nye grown faithless.\"\n\nFor a while all were silent, startled at Halfred's sudden appearance,\nwhom they had believed to be sleeping soundly by Thora's side. But\nHartvik recovered and spoke--\n\n\"It is not we who are mad, or have grown faithless, but thou, our\nunhappy brother, under magic spell. We would have accomplished what\nmust be done without it being possible for thee to hinder it. Thou\nshouldst only have trodden the deck again, when, against thine own\nwill, thou wert restored to health.\n\n\"Now, however, since thou hast too soon learnt this, hear what we, thy\nblood brethren and the most of those on board, assembled in ship's\ncouncil, last night resolved--resolved for thy weal, although many\nopposed it, and would first have spoken with thee. Submit thyself\npeaceably, for it is unalterable as the course of the stars, and\nalthough thou art very strong, Halfred Hamundson, bethink thee, thou\nart weaponless, and we are seventy.\"\n\nHalfred was silent. Fearfully swelled his temple veins; but he thought\nof Thora. \"She sleeps,\" he whispered. \"Say softly what ye have to say.\nI listen.\"\n\n\"Halfred, our dear blood brother,\" continued Hartvik softly. \"Thou\nliest spell bound in the toils of a woman who--I will verily not revile\nher, for I love her more ardently than my own heart's blood--whatever\nshe may be, a mortal woman undoubtedly is not.\n\n\"Here works one of the strongest spells which ever witchcraft wove, and\never befooled the senses of men.\n\n\"I blame her not as do many of our comrades.\n\n\"She can do no otherwise. This is her very nature.\n\n\"She is in truth an Elfin woman, or what the Irish call their white half\nGoddesses.\n\n\"In the old Sagas it is told that there are such magic women, who,\nwhether they will or not, wherever they come, bewitch the eyes and\nhearts of all men. In Herjadal lived such an one, seventy years ago,\nand there was no peace in the land until they had hung a mill stone\nabout her neck, and sunk her where the Fjord is deepest.\n\n\"That this woman is no mortal woman can any one see who only looks once\nin her white face, through which all the veins shine blue, and in the\nselfish glittering golden eyes. This alone were enough, without that\nwhich many among us have seen; how, lately, when the moon was full, she\nrose unperceived from thy side, and floated up upon deck and with\nclosed eyes danced up and down upon the slightest wing feathers of the\nSinging Swan, like an elf in the moon rays. And when the moon went\nbehind a cloud she glided just as lightly down to thee.\n\n\"But this is the smallest part of her magic.\n\n\"Not thee alone has her beauty ensnared. She hath so crazed all the\nship's crew that they forget work and duty to gaze after her as she\nfloats along.\n\n\"Yes, even among us, blood friends, hath she kindled frightful sinister\nthoughts against thee, and against each other. I, who care not for\nwomen, and Eigil, who never thought of any woman save my burnt sister,\nwe have lately by night confessed to each other that this silent white\nelf woman hath so fearfully crazed our senses, that each of us has\nalready wished thy death, yes, would even have contrived it, in order\nto win this golden haired enchantress.\n\n\"And when we confessed these same thoughts to each other, we were filled\nwith shame.\n\n\"Yet nevertheless each of us has plotted the death of the other.\n\n\"There must be an end of this.\n\n\"This slender sorceress shall not make men murderers in their thoughts,\nwho have stood together through fire and blood.\n\n\"We will not throw her overboard, as many of the crew in superstitious\nterror advise. Where would be the use? She would swim like a sea bird\non the tops of the waves. But we will bear her back to the lonely\nisland, where no eye of man can see her, and where no doubt wise gods\nhad banished her. We would all possess her, and none shall have what\neach covets.\"\n\nFrightfully throbbed the veins in Halfred's temples, in his rage. \"The\nfirst,\" he said, quite softly, through his gnashing teeth, \"the first\nwho lifts a hand, ay even a look towards her, I will tear his false\nheart from his living body.\"\n\nAnd so frightfully threatening was his face to behold that Hartvik and\nall the armed men drew back a couple of paces.\n\nBut Eigil stepped forward again, and spoke in a louder voice than\nHartvik had used.\n\n\"Halfred, give way. We have sworn it. We will compel thee.\"\n\n\"Ye compel me!\" cried Halfred, also now in a louder voice. \"Murder and\nrevolt on board the Singing Swan! What saith the Viking code? Like a\ndog shall he hang by the neck at the mast head who secretly stirs up\ndisobedience to the ship's lord.\"\n\n\"To the ship's lord, yes, when madness crazes him not,\" shouted Eigil\nagain.\n\n\"Darest thou to speak of rights, Halfred Hamundson?\n\n\"Only because madness and magic excuse thee, have we not long since\nasserted our rights against thee: thou, who every word and bond of\nright hast broken. We demand our rights. But thou hast no right to that\nwoman.\n\n\"Hast thou forgotten, Perjurer, that bloodstained midsummer night on\nHamunds Fjord? Of that, in truth, thou hast not spoken, since, like a\nlove sick boy, thou hast doted on this slender sorceress.\n\n\"Thou hast forgotten it, but the seamen who sail by yonder spot, they\nsee with horror the huge black Heckla Stone which there hides an awful\ncatastrophe, and covers a fearful curse. But huge and heavy as it is,\nit cannot bury it. Demanding vengeance the shades of many thousand dead\narise, who lie there, through thy crime, and with whom thou hast broken\nfaith and oath.\n\n\"For how did'st thou swear in that night?\n\n\n\"Here I renounce, on account of the awful calamity which I have drawn\ndown upon wife and child, and many hundred friends and strangers, I\nrenounce for ever happiness and joy, song, wine, and the love of women.\nTo the dead alone, slain for my crime, with whose ashes I here cover\nmyself on their grave mound, do I belong, and among the living to my\nfaithful blood-brethren. And if I break this solemnly-sworn vow, then\nbe Dame Harthild's curse wholly fulfilled.\"\n\n\n\"But thou carest no more for Gods or men, no more for us thy\nblood-brethren, who stood by thee to the death; who kept faith with\nthee against our own kindred; who defended thy head against King\nHartstein's sword when thou layest defenceless as a child upon our\nknees; who for thee have slain our nearest kindred; for thee have given\nup sister and beloved.\n\n\"Her also, whose voluptuous lips have kissed forgetfulness upon thy\nforehead, even her also has thy selfishness forgotten; for thou wilt\nbring destruction upon her, as surely as the Gods hear curses, and\nchastise perjury.\n\n\"Doubtless thou hast never told the white armed enchantress what a\nfearful curse thou, with each kiss, art drawing down nearer and nearer\nupon her head.\"\n\n\"Silence, Raven,\" cried Halfred, threateningly, paling with rage and\ndread.\n\nBut Eigil continued, \"Who knows if the golden eyes would not turn\nshuddering from thee did she know that upon thy head rests the curse of\nthe wedded wife, burned through thee--of thy unborn murdered son. And\nthou hast exposed her as well as thyself to the fearful sentence--it\nwill be fulfilled, for unerring is such deadly hate:\n\n\n\"'Cursed be thy proud thoughts--Madness shall strike them;\n\n\"'Cursed be thy false eyes--Blindness shall smite them;\n\n\"'Cursed be thy lying lips--They shall wither and smile no more;\n\n\"'Yet a twofold curse shall rend thee both, if thou winnest again a\nwoman's love.\n\n\"'In madness and disease shall she perish whom thou lovest more than\nthy soul.'\"\n\n\nHere sounded a faint soul-harrowing moan from the open gangway.\n\n\"Thou here!\" cried Eigil, and paused.\n\nHalfred turned. There behind him stood Thora, not white as in general,\nbut with crimson glowing head, like a poppy, her eyes gazing wildly\nupwards towards the moon and stars. Suddenly she uplifted both arms on\nhigh, as though to avert from Halfred's head some fearful stroke from\nthe clouds. Then, once more, a faint but heart piercing moan, and she\nfell forwards upon her face, like a crushed flower. Blood flowed from\nher mouth. Halfred would have quickly raised her, but lifeless lay the\nslight form on his arms.\n\n\"Dead,\" cried Halfred, \"murdered! And ye have murdered her!\"\n\nHe let slip the ice-cold form, wrenched with one tremendous spring\nforwards his hammer from Hartvik, and swinging it on high, with one\nstroke of his arm brought it crashing down upon the heads of both his\nblood-brethren, so that brains, blood, and fragments of skulls were\nscattered all around.\n\nWith that deed began a slaughter on board the Singing Swan like that of\nthe midsummer night; only it was much shorter, because there were fewer\nto slay.\n\nIt seemed to Halfred as though his temple veins had burst. He felt,\ninstead of brains, only boiling blood in his head; he tasted blood in\nhis mouth, he saw only red blood before his eyes. Without choosing,\nwithout asking who was for or against him, he sprang into the thickest\nof the crowd of armed men, seized man after man by the throat with his\nleft hand, and shattered their skulls with the broad side of his\nhammer.\n\nHe did not in the least perceive that a handful of men stood by him. He\ndid not notice the many wounds he received on arms, face, and hands, in\nclose combat with his despairing foes. He raged on and slew, until all\nwhom he could see before him lay dead and silent upon the deck. Then he\nturned, still brandishing his hammer, and shouted--\n\n\"Who besides Halfred still breathes on this accursed ship?\"\n\nThen he saw that some six men of those who had aided him kneeled behind\nhim. They had formed, with their shields, a half circle round Thora's\nbody, and had turned off many a spear which would have reached the form\nof the white sorceress. Halfred perceived this.\n\n\"Stand up,\" he said, with his left arm wiping away the blood and sweat\nfrom his forehead, and the white foam from his lips.\n\nHe thrust the blood stained hammer into his belt, and kneeled beside\nThora, pillowing on his breast her face, which had become whiter than\never before.\n\n\"It was too much to bear and to hear at once. The frightful hailstones\nof this curse have struck the white rose too heavily.\"\n\nThen she opened her eyes, and murmured, \"Not for me, only for thee,\nhave the horrors of this curse overwhelmed me.\"\n\n\"She lives! she lives! Praise to you, ye gracious Gods,\" exulted\nHalfred, \"It could not be that she should die for the crimes of others.\nShe must be healed, as surely as the Gods live. Had Thora perished for\nmine, for other men's guilt; with this hammer must I have slain all the\nGods.\"\n\nAnd tenderly and softly, as a mother a sick child, the mighty man\nraised his young wife in both arms, and bore her, treading softly, down\nthe steps.\n\nBut once more before she left the deck, Thora opened her eyes. She saw\nHalfred stained all over with blood. She recognised, by their armour\nand clothing, the bodies of Hartvik and Eigil, with frightfully\nshattered heads. She saw the whole deck strewn with dead. She saw that\nonly very few of the ship's crew were left, and shuddering, shrinking,\nshe closed her eyes again.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER XIV.\n\n\nBut Halfred kneeled day and night beside her couch. He held her languid\nhand; he listened to her faint breathing; he kissed from her lips the\nsmall drops of blood which often gathered there.\n\nHe had the board which closed the gangway between the decks taken away,\nand heaven and the stars shone down upon Thora's pillow.\n\nWhen the day had gone ill, and much blood had flowed, and she fell\nasleep with the falling night, then he would mount a few steps, draw\nhis hammer from his belt, and threaten the stars with furious words.\n\n\"If ye let her die for others' guilt, then woe to you, ye Gods, woe to\nall who live.\"\n\nBut had the sufferer gained strength, and smiled lovingly and\npeacefully on him; then this same ferocious man mounted upon the deck,\nkneeled down, and cried with outstretched arms, and tear-choked voice,\n\n\"Praise, praise, to you, ye gracious Gods! I knew it, verily, that ye\nlive and rule justly, and would not let her die for others' guilt.\"\n\nAnd if the day wavered between good and evil, between fear and hope,\nthen he paced the narrow chamber with hasty steps and murmured\ninaudibly,\n\n\"Are there Gods! are there Gods! are there gracious Gods?\"\n\nAnd he believed that Thora heard this not, because she slept.\n\nBut she lay often awake, with closed eyes, and understood it all, and\nit troubled her sorely, in waking and dreaming.\n\nAnd Halfred now told her, at her mute request, all about Dame Harthild,\nand the curse, and how all had happened.\n\nWhen he had ended she murmured shuddering, \"Much has been fulfilled! If\nyet more should be fulfilled, unhappy Halfred.\"\n\nIt seemed, however, that Thora was better.\n\nAnd Halfred resolved at once to carry her upon deck, that she might\nbreathe the fresh air, and again behold the beauty of sea and heaven.\n\nAnd he had the deck carefully cleansed from all traces of the horrible\nfight, and ordered the sailors, the day before, to run into a coast\nwhich was bright with summer flowers, and commanded a whole mountain of\nflowers, as he said, to be piled upon the ship, for he would have her\nlaid upon a hill of flowers.\n\nAnd the men obeyed; and the whole deck was so thickly strewn with\nflowers that nowhere was a bit of wood visible.\n\nAnd close by the mast rose a swelling couch of perfumed light\nwood-grass, and all the loveliest wood flowers, so high that it reached\nto Halfred's breast.\n\nOver this he spread a rich white linen mantle, and laid the heavily\nbreathing form upon it.\n\nAnd again the moon was full, as on that night of the battle on the\nship. But many storm-rent clouds were still driving across the heavens,\nand the sailing disk of the moon had not pierced through them.\n\nAnd it was midsummer night. The first that Halfred had not spent by the\nblack Heckla Stone in Iceland.\n\nThora had fallen asleep upon her flowers.\n\nHalfred had covered her with his own mantle. And he sat close by the\nflower hill, and looked into the noble, pale, all bloodless face, and\nthen quietly before him again.\n\n\"Ye have done all things well, ye merciful dwellers in the stars above.\nYe have requited me, for that I never altogether doubted ye. I will not\nagain question with ye, wherefore ye have ordained for me this second\nfearful thing, that I should be forced to slay my dear blood-brethren,\nand so many of the ship's crew.\n\n\"Because ye have saved this wonderful flower, and have not suffered her\nguiltless, to perish for other's guilt, for ever will I bless ye.\n\n\"And a song of praise will I compose for you, ye merciful and gracious\nGods; such as never yet has resounded to your praise. Thanks to you, ye\ngracious Gods!\"\n\nAnd thus musing he fell asleep; for it was many many nights since he\nhad slept.\n\nThen a piercing cry awoke him, which seemed to ring from the stars.\n\"Halfred.\" It fell upon his ear from high above.\n\nHe started up from slumber, and looked upwards. There he saw what\nfilled him with horror. The full moon had, while he slept, pierced the\nclouds, and shone with full radiance upon Thora's face. Now Halfred saw\nher, standing swaying, high on the slender cross-spars, many many feet\nabove his head.\n\nLike a white ghost she shone in the moonlight; her widely opened eyes\nlooked out into her future; her right hand she stretched, as though\nwarding off, into the night. She did not hold fast by the slender\ntowering mast, on whose giddying height naught else save the seabird,\ntossing, rested. And yet she stood firmly erect; but in her face was\ndespairing woe.\n\n\"O Halfred,\" she wailed, in a low tone of heart-rending anguish, \"O\nHalfred--how distracted thy looks--how fearfully tangled hair and\nbeard! Ah! how thine eye rolls--and half naked--like a Berseker, in\nshaggy wolf's skin. And how stained thou art with the blood of\nguiltless men. And why threatenest thou the fair-haired shepherd the\nlight-hearted boy? Beware--beware the sling--guard thyself--turn thy\nhead--the swing whistles--the stone flies--O Halfred--thine eye.\" And\nbending far forward she stretched, as though she would protect, both\narms into the air. Now she must fall--so it seemed.\n\n\"Fall not, Thora!\" cried Halfred upwards.\n\nThen, as though lightning struck, swift as an arrow, with a wild\nshriek, she fell downwards from the giddy height of the mast.\n\nThe white forehead struck upon the deck, her head and golden hair were\nbathed in blood.\n\n\"Thora! Thora!\" cried Halfred, and raised her up, and looked into\nher eyes. Then he fell senseless with her upon his face among the\nflowers--for she was dead.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER XV.\n\n\nWhen Halfred raised himself again--he had already long since recovered\nconsciousness, but not the power to rise--the sun was fast going down.\n\nHe called the six seamen, who had held themselves shyly aloof in the\nstern and lower deck, and spoke, but his voice, he himself told me,\nsounded strange to him like that of another person.\n\n\"She is dead. Slain for the sins of others.\n\n\"There are no Gods.\n\n\"Were there Gods I must have dashed out the brains of all of them, one\nby one, with this hammer.\n\n\"The whole world, heaven and sea, and hell, I must have burned with\nconsuming fire.\n\n\"Nothing should any longer be, since Thora no longer is.\n\n\"The world can I not destroy.\n\n\"But the ships, and all that is upon it, I will burn--a great funereal\npile for Thora.\n\n\"Do as I say to ye.\"\n\nAnd he embedded with gentle hands, the dead Thora in the flower mound,\nso that almost nothing of her form and clothing were to be seen.\n\nAnd by his orders the six men were obliged to bring upon deck all the\nweapons, treasures, clothing, and provisions, which were stored in the\nhold of the Singing Swan.\n\nAnd Halfred heaped them around the mast upon the flower mound, and\npurple clothing, linen cloth, silken stuff, golden vessels, and soft\ncushions, he piled up all round about.\n\nThen he poured ship's tar over all, and covered it with withered\nbrushwood, and dry chips from the kitchen.\n\nAnd he ordered all sail to be set--a strong warm south wind was\nblowing--\n\nThen he mounted upon the upper deck, and overlooked all.\n\nAnd he nodded his head, well satisfied. And then he descended to the\nkitchen, to bring up a burning brand.\n\nWhen he came up again he found that the sailors had lowered the two\nship's boats, the larger and the smaller boat, they lay tossing by the\nboat ropes, to the right and left of the Singing Swan.\n\n\"Hasten, my lord,\" cried one of the seamen to him; \"so soon as thou\nhast thrown the torch, to spring into a boat; for rapidly, in this\ngale, will the Singing Swan flame up, and easily might the fire seize\nthe boats, and cause both thee and all of us to perish.\"\n\nHalfred looked with staring eyes at the man \"Would ye still live, after\nye have seen this?\n\n\"Think ye that I will live without Thora? after the guiltless for\nother's,--for my crime,--hath died?\n\n\"No, with me shall ye all on this ship burn--truly a worthless funeral\npile for Thora.\"\n\n\"Thou shalt not destroy us, guiltless. Forbid it, Gods!\" cried the man,\nand sprang upon Halfred, to wrest the firebrand from him.\n\nBut with a fearful blow of his fist Halfred struck him down upon the\ndeck.\n\nLaughing shrilly, he shouted, \"Gods! Who dare still to believe in Gods,\nwhen Thora, guiltless, has died?\n\n\"There are no Gods, I tell ye.\n\n\"Were there Gods, I must have slain them all.\n\n\"And I will slay, as my deadly enemy, whosoever declares that he still\nbelieves in Gods.\"\n\nFuriously he brandished the firebrand in his left hand, the hammer in\nhis right, and cried to the trembling sailors--\n\n\"Choose--If ye believe that there are Gods, then I will strike ye down\nlike this too forward comrade.\n\n\"But if ye renounce the Gods, then may ye live, and depart, and bear\nwitness everywhere that there are no Gods.\n\n\"Are there Gods?\" shouted the maniac, drawing near to the trembling\nmen.\n\n\"No, my lord; there are no Gods,\" cried the men, and fell upon their\nknees.\n\n\"Then go--and leave me alone to my own will.\"\n\nQuickly the seamen descended into the larger boat on the left.\n\nHalfred, however, stuck the hammer in his belt, and strode with rapid\nsteps hither and thither upon the deck, and set fire to mast and sail,\nand purple clothing and carved work, and to the neck of the Swan on the\nprow-wailing, the wind passed once more through the curved wings of the\nSwan.\n\nThe strong south wind fanned the crackling flames; quickly was the\nship, on all sides, wrapped in a glowing blaze. The sails streamed like\nfiery wings from the mast.\n\nSilently, with folded arms, Halfred sat upon the upper deck, his eyes\nrigidly fixed upon the flower mound.\n\nSwift as an arrow flew the burning ship before the wind. The fire had\nrapidly consumed the dried wood grass, and Thora's form and face were\nfully visible. Then Halfred saw how the scorching flames seized upon\nThora's long floating golden hair. \"That was the last thing,\" he said\nto me, \"that I saw for a long time.\"\n\nIn unutterable anguish he sprang up, and rushed all along the burning\nship, straight through the flames, to Thora, He sprang upon the flower\nmound to embrace the body.\n\nThen he felt a frightful blow upon his head, and left eye. The half\nburned mast had fallen with a crash upon him; he was dashed upon his\nface among the flowers and the flames, and darkness closed over him.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER XVI.\n\n\nWhen Halfred again awoke he lay in the bottom of a small boat, which\ndrove over the open sea.\n\nHis hammer lay at his right hand. A cruise of water stood at his left\nhand. Two oars were in the stem of the boat.\n\nHalfred started up to look around him.\n\nThen he perceived that he could only see with difficulty what was on\nhis left side. He felt for his left eye, and found a bleeding cavity. A\nsplinter of the mast had struck it out, and a stabbing pain beat\nthrough his brain, which he said never again left him as long as he\nlived.\n\nHe looked at his body. In charred rags his burnt clothing hung upon\nhim. Far in the distance he saw a craft which he recognized as the\nlarger boat of the Singing Swan.\n\nThe Singing Swan herself had disappeared; but away to the south there\nlay a cloud of vapour and smoke over the sea.\n\nThe boat in which Halfred stood he recognised as the smaller boat of\nthe Singing Swan. Evidently his sailing comrades had dragged the\nhalf-burned maniac from the burning ship, and saved him.\n\nThey had abandoned him to the Gods whom he had blasphemed, and in whom\nthey believed, to be saved by them, or perish. But no more fellowship\nwould they have with a man stricken by the heaviest of curses--madness.\n\nFor mad Halfred was, from the hour when he sprang into the flames, and\nthe mast struck him, until shortly before his death.\n\nTherefore could he only tell me very little of all that in the meantime\nhappened either to, or through him.\n\nBut what he did tell me, here I faithfully write down.\n\nBut many many years must he have wandered in madness.\n\nHe told me, moreover, that he saw only before his eyes how Thora fell\nfrom the mast; and how the flames seized her head and hair. And that he\ncould only think one single thought. \"There are no Gods. Were there\nGods I must have slain them.\n\n\"So must I slay all human beings who believe in Gods; for blotted out\nfrom the earth shall be the name and remembrance of the Gods.\"\n\nAnd he could not die until he had slain the last man who still believed\nin the Gods.\n\nAnd thus he journeyed all about, everywhere, in his small ship; landed\nin bays and upon islands, lived upon game which he hunted, or upon\ndomestic animals which he found in the fields, upon roots and wild\nberries from the woods, upon eggs of sea-birds, and mussels from the\nrocks.\n\nAnd often the storm waves broke high over his boat, and shattered her\nplanks. But she sank not, nor was he drowned.\n\nAnd one day he saw he was wholly naked, the last charred rags had\nfallen from him. He was chilled, and when he met a wolf in the wood, he\nran after him so long that he overtook him, slew him with his hammer,\ntook off his skin, and hung it round his loins.\n\nAnd thus he roamed and sailed, half naked, all about the north. And\nnone recognised in the maniac Berseker, Halfred Sigskald, the son of\nOski.\n\nAnd he told me that when he chanced upon mankind, whither they were\nmany or few, he sprang upon them, and shouted to them his question.\n\n\"Are there Gods?\"\n\nAnd if they said \"Yes,\" or as the most did, gave him no answer, then he\nslew them all with his hammer. But if they said \"No,\" as also many\ndid--for it was already rumoured throughout the whole north, that a\nnaked giant wandered through all lands with this question, whom the\npeople called \"God destroyer\"--or if they took to flight, then he let\nthem live.\n\nAnd often, from dread, the peasants and the women gave him fruit,\nbread, milk, and other food. Many however bound themselves in a league\nto go out and slay him, as a wild beast. But they could not stand\nbefore the fury and strength of the maniac. He killed the bold, the\ntimorous fled.\n\nHe slept hardly at all at night, therefore they could not surprise him\nin his sleep.\n\nOnce, when he spent the night in the bam of a peasant, who had\npreviously renounced the Gods, with all his household, the people from\nthe court barricaded the straw-filled bam, and set fire to it. But\nHalfred burst through the roof, dashed through the flames and arrows,\nwhich could not pierce his body, and slew them all with his hammer.\n\nAnd this maniac wandering endured many years.\n\nAnd sea storms, and burning suns, and autumn frosts, and winter ice,\nbeat upon Halfred's half-naked body.\n\nAnd his hair and beard stood out like a mane around him.\n\nBut no longer dark, as when of yore he trod, as a wooer. King\nHarstein's courts--but snow white. In a single night--the night when\nThora died--his hair had become white.\n\n\n\n\n                             CHAPTER XVII.\n\n\nAnd after many years he came sailing in his rotten boat over the seas\nwhich play around the island of Caledonia. He landed, seized his\nhammer, and strode upwards to a steep rocky hill, on which sheep and\ngoats were grazing.\n\nIt was early morning, in the time when roses begin to bloom.\n\nMist floated over the sea, and upon the cliffs.\n\nThen Halfred saw the shepherd standing above, on the cliff's edge; and\nhe played a lovely melody upon his shepherd's pipe.\n\nAnd at first he doubted whether he should ask this shepherd boy his\nquestion about the Gods, for he left women and boys unquestioned. And\nthis shepherd seemed to him but a boy.\n\nBut as he climbed nearer to him he saw that the shepherd carried a\nspear, and a shepherd's sling, with which to kill wolves.\n\nAnd the shepherd lad believed that this was a robber or a Berseker\ncoming against him and his sheep.\n\nAnd he chose out of his leather pouch a sharp heavy stone, and laid it\nin his sling, and held it ready to cast it.\n\nHalfred held his left hand over the eye that remained to him, and\nlooked upward with difficulty, dazzled, for just then the sun broke out\nthrough the mist clouds exactly above the head of the shepherd, who\nthus saw clearly the figure of the half naked man, with tangled\nfloating hair and beard, who now raising the hammer threateningly\nascended the hill. Upon a slab of stone, under a great ash tree, he\nstopped, and cried to the shepherd--\n\n\"Are there Gods, shepherd boy? Sayest thou yes, then thou must die.\"\n\n\"Gods, there are not,\" replied the shepherd, in a clear voice, \"but\nwise men have taught me there lives one Almighty Triune God, Creator of\nHeaven and Earth.\"\n\nThe man with the hammer paused for a moment as if meditating.\n\nSuch an answer had he never received.\n\nSoon, however, he sprang threateningly upwards again.\n\nPreventing him, however, the shepherd swung his sling; whirring flew\nthe sharp stone; it was a sharp hard three-edged flint stone--I had\ncarefully reserved it for some great peril--and alas! alas--woe is me,\nonly too truly did it strike. Without a sound Halfred fell, where he\nstood, on his back under the ash tree, himself like to a suddenly\nfelled tree.\n\nWith a few bounds the shepherd reached the prostrate form, cautiously\nholding his spear before him, lest the enemy should suddenly spring up\nagain. For it might be that he only artfully feigned to be wounded.\n\nAs he drew nearer, however, he saw that it was no deceit, but rather\nevident truth.\n\nBlood streamed over the fallen man's right cheek, and in the cavity of\nthe right eye stuck the sharp flint stone.\n\nBut pity mingled with dread seized upon the shepherd, as he gazed in\nthe fearful mighty face of the man who lay mute at his feet. Never\nbefore had he seen so splendid a face; at once so noble, and so sad.\n\nAnd superstitious fear overcame him, if it might not be the chief of\nthe heathen gods, Odhin, the one-eyed, who in the semblance of this\nwanderer with the white beard had appeared to him.\n\nBut soon he felt yet deeper sympathy and compassion, for the wounded\nman in a weak voice began:--\n\n\"Whosoever thou mayest be, who hast cast this stone, receive the\nthanks, O shepherd boy, of a world and woe weary man. Thou hast taken\nfrom me the light of the second eye also. I need no longer to see\nmen-kind and the heavens. Neither of them have I understood for a long\ntime. And soon shall I pass to where questions are no more asked, and\ncurses no more cursed. I thank thee, whosoever thou mayest be. Thou\nhast of all living beings--save one--done the best for Halfred\nHamundson.\"\n\nThen with a loud cry I threw my spear on one side, fell upon my knees,\nembraced the pale bleeding head, and cried:--\n\n\"Halfred, Halfred, my father, forgive, forgive me!--I am the murderer--\nand thy son--\"\n\nNow ye who shall one day unroll this parchment--pause at this place,\nand look upwards to the sun, if it is day, and to the stars, if it is\nnight, and ask with Halfred--\"Are there Gods?\"\n\nFor I, I, who secretly and in dread write these pages during the night\nhours, I am the shepherd boy, Halfred's son, who have slain him.\n\nAnd the Gods, or the Christian God, have allowed it to come to pass\nthat the son has blinded and murdered the father.\n\nI wept hot tears upon my dear father's pale forehead. But he turned his\nhead, as though he would see me, and said--\n\n\"It is hard that the curse must be so wholly fulfilled upon me, that I\nmust be entirely blinded before death.\n\n\"Fain would I have looked closely into thy face, my dear son.\n\n\"Now I know not if the golden cloud I saw spread about thy head was thy\nhair or the sun rays.\n\n\"Thou seemedst to me fair to look upon, my boy.\n\n\"But tell me, how do they call thee?\n\n\"Have they verily, at thy birth, named thee Liarson Scoundrelson\nHarthildsvengeance? and how did it happen that thou camest into life. I\nbelieved Dame Harthild burned in the dwelling house.\"\n\nThen I laid my dear father's head upon my knees, and dried with the\nlong yellow hair I was at that time still allowed to wear, the blood\nfrom his cheek, and told him all.\n\nHow my mother would not be carried from the burning Mead hall back into\nthe dwelling house, but rather on to one of the ships of her father.\n\nHow from thence, when the battle and the flames threatened dwelling\nhouse and ships, she was borne by her women and the sailors into a\nboat, and therein rowed out upon the Fjord.\n\nHow in the boat she had forthwith given birth to a son, but died\nherself; and ere she died had laid her hand upon my head, and said--\n\n\"Not Liarson--not Scoundrelson--not Harthildsvengeance shall he be\nnamed--no; Fridgifa Sigskaldson.\"[6]\n\n\"She was right in that,\" said Halfred. \"Thou hast aided the Sigskald to\npeace at last.\"\n\nAnd how after she was dead the fearful battle and burning on shore\nscared the sailors and women still further out to sea.\n\nAnd how the small boat was almost sunk by the fury of a storm from the\nwest, and all the bondmen and women were washed overboard by the waves,\nsave one rower, and a bond maiden, who hid the infant under the stern\nseat.\n\nAnd how, at last, Christian priests, who were sailing out to convert\nthe heathen people, picked up the half starved wanderers, and brought\nall three hither, to the island of the holy Columban; and cleansed both\nthe two, and the infant, with the water of baptism.\n\nAnd how the two, my foster parents, told me all that they knew about my\nfather, and mother, up to the time of the burning of the Mead hall.\n\nAnd how the two were never weary of lauding to me my father's glory in\nbattle and song.\n\nAnd how the monks of Saint Columban, as I grew, would have me taught to\nread and write; but I loved far better to go out with the hunters and\nshepherds of the monastery, and liked to draw targets on the parchment\nleaves for my little cross-bow.\n\nAnd how, at length, they declared me unfit for books, when with my\nsmall bolt I had pierced through and through a costly picture which on\nthe gold ground of a thumb broad margin represented the whole of the\nPassion, and promoted me with a sound thrashing to be herd boy of the\nmonastery.\n\nAnd how for many years, since my foster parents were dead, I had kept\nthe sheep of the monastery; and my sole pleasure therein had been in\nfighting with the bears, the wolves, and the eagles, that attacked the\nlambs.\n\nOr in playing upon my shepherd's pipe, or in listening to the roar of\nthe sea and the forest.\n\nAnd Halfred laid my head upon his broad breast, and folded both his\narms around it, and laid his hand upon it, and was still and silent for\na long time.\n\nAnd I brought him water to drink from the fountain, and milk from my\nflock; and would have drawn the stone from the wound, but he said--\n\n\"Leave it, my dear son--the end draws near.\n\n\"But I feel the band taken away from my brain, which for many many\nyears has pressed upon it.\n\n\"And all becomes clear and bright to my thoughts. I can see inwardly\nagain how all has been, now that I can no longer see outward things.\n\n\"And for thee, and for myself, before I die, I will set forth clearly\nand exactly how all has been. Give me once again milk from thy flock to\ndrink.\"\n\nAnd I gave him to drink, and he laid his head again upon my knee, and\nbegan to tell me, quite clearly and distinctly, all that had come to\npass since that midsummer night.\n\nAnd from his lips have I learned all, onward from that midsummer night,\nwhich in the earlier pages of this book I have written out. And much\nhave I also learned from him, of those earlier times of which my foster\nparents could know nothing.\n\nAnd I have kept it all in faithful remembrance.\n\nAnd as the evening fell he came to the end of his account, and he said,\n\n\"Lay my face so that once more the sun shall shine upon it. Fain would\nI feel the dear Lord once again.\"\n\nAnd I did as he commanded.\n\nAnd he breathed deeply, and said:\n\n\"It must certainly be spring. A perfume of wild roses floats to me.\"\n\nAnd I told him that he lay under a blooming rose-bush.\n\nAnd then a blackbird raised his sweet song from the bush.\n\n\"Thus I hear once more the blackbird's evening song,\" said Halfred.\n\n\"Now farewell all. Sun and sea, forest and stars of heaven, wild rose\nperfume, and songs of birds; and farewell to thee, my dear son. I thank\nthee that thou hast released me from madness, and an evil life.\n\n\"I can, to requite thee, as all my heritage, leave thee only this\nhammer. Guard it faithfully.\n\n\"Whether there be Gods--I know not. Methinks that men can never search\nit out. But I tell thee, my son, whether Gods live or not, hammer\nthrowing, and harp playing, and sunshine, and the kiss of woman, these\nare the rewards of life.\n\n\"Mayest thou win a wife who is but a faint reflection of Thora.\n\n\"Then hail to thee, my son!\n\n\"Bury me here, where mingles the roar of the forest and the sea.\n\n\"Farewell my dear son. Dame Harthild's curse thou hast turned for me\ninto a blessing.\"\n\nAnd he died.\n\nThe blackbird ceased singing in the bush. And as the sun sank, one warm\nfull flood of his rays streamed full upon that mighty face.\n\nThus died the son of Oski.\n\n\n\n\n                             CHAPTER XVIII.\n\n\nWhen now my dear father was dead, whom I myself had slain, I wept\nbitterly, and lay all night by the side of the dead.\n\nAnd when the sun again arose I considered what I should now do.\n\nAt first I thought I would drive the flock to the monastery, which lay\nsome six stages distant, and relate all to the monks, and confess how I\nhad, all unwittingly, slain my own father; and beg for absolution for\nmyself, and for a Christian grave for my dear father.\n\nBut I bethought me that the monks would not bury my father with\nChristian honours, since he had died a heathen. And neither would they\nallow me to burn him, after the custom of the heathen people, because\nthe heathen gods would thus be brought much into remembrance. And they\nwould certainly throw him, unhonoured, into the sea, as they had\nalready done to a heathen from Zealand.\n\nSo I resolved to be silent about it all, and not to betray my dear dead\nfather to the priests.\n\nAnd thus could I neither confess the death blow, nor receive counsel\nrespecting my guiltless crime.\n\nAnd from thence was the beginning of my freeing my mind from the monks\nand their creed.\n\nAnd I knew, quite near, of a cavern, which was known only to me, for it\nhad a very small entrance, and I had only discovered it because I had\nfollowed a stone marten which had slipped into it. A fallen block of\nstone concealed the entrance, and I found many ashes and remnants of\nbones within the spacious cavern, which opened towards the sea. In\nearly days, no doubt, the heathen Scots had burnt their dead here.\nThither I carried, not without much difficulty, my dear dead father,\nand set him upright in the cavern, his face turned towards the sea. The\nroots of the oaks and ashes which waved above the cavern, penetrated\nthrough the stone downwards almost to his head. Above him roared the\nforest, before him roared the sea. There did I place my dear father,\nand rolled the stone again to the entrance.\n\nBut even his hammer, his only possession, I dared not keep. Even should\nI tell the monks I had found it, or bought it from sailors--they would\nnot have left it with me, for strong heathen victory runes were\nengraved on the haft.\n\nSo I laid then the hammer also close to the right hand of the dead.\n\"Guard it for me, dear father,\" I said, \"till I need it again. Then\nwill I fetch it.\"\n\nBut from that hour there came a great change over my disposition.\n\nThat which had most delighted me, to fight for my sheep with wolves,\nbears, and birds of prey--that attracted me no more.\n\nRather the question which had driven my dear father even to madness, if\nthere be a God, or Gods? And how it could be that such fearful things\nshould come to pass as are here set down in this history, from the vow\nupon the Bragi cup, on to this great horror, that the son had slain his\nown father. These questionings seized upon me, and would not let me\nrest, any more than my dear father.\n\nAnd as my dear father of yore looked up to the stars, and implored the\nheathen Gods for enlightenment, so also did I look up to the stars for\nillumination, praying to Christ and the saints.\n\nBut to me also the heavens were dumb.\n\nThen I said to myself--\"Here on the sheep pastures, and from the roar\nof the sea, and from the light of the stars, wilt thou find no answer\nall thy life long, any more than thy dear father.\n\n\"But in the books of the monks, the Latin ones and those others, with\nthe crinkled runic flourishes, lie hidden all holy and worldly wisdom.\n\n\"And when thou can'st read them, all will be clear to thee in heaven\nand upon earth.\"\n\nAnd so I took leave of my dear father, gathered my sheep together, and\ndrove them to the monastery.\n\n\"Art thou gone mad, Irenaeus?\" asked the porter, as he opened the door\nfor me and my bleating charge, \"that thou drivest home before shearing\ntime. They will scourge thee again.\"\n\n\"I was mad,\" I replied, \"but now I will become a scholar. Now another\nmay scare the wolves. I will learn Greek.\"\n\nAnd thus I also said to the good Abbot Aelfrik, before whom I was at\nonce led for chastisement.\n\nBut he said--\n\n\"Lay the scourge aside. Perchance the boy, who has always been a\nheathenish worldly Saul, has become suddenly a Paul, through the grace\nof the holy Columban. He shall have his wish. If he holds to it--then\nit is a work of the saints. If his zeal flags, then it is a wile of\nSatan, and he shall go out again to his sheep.\"\n\nBut I kept silence, and said nothing about the reason for which I\nwished to learn.\n\nAnd my zeal did not flag, and I learned Latin and Greek, and read all\nthe books that they had in the monastery, the Christian ones of the\nchurch fathers, which they call theology, and many heathen ones, of the\nold world wisdom, which they call philosophy.\n\nAnd I soon perceived that often, in one church father, was found just\nthe contrary of what was in another church father.\n\nAnd that Aristotle reviled Plato, and that Cicero tried to make sense\nof it all, and could not.\n\nAnd after that I, in three, four years, had read through all the books\nwhich they had in the monastery, and had contended all night long with\nall the monks in the monastery, I knew no more of that which I wished\nto know than on the day when I had buried my dear father.\n\nThe old good-natured fat Abbot Aelfrik however--he was of noble race,\nand had formerly been a warrior at the court of the Scottish King, and\nloved me--often said to me,\n\n\"Give up these searchings Fridgifa\"--for he willingly called me by my\nheathen name when we were alone. \"Thou must believe, not question. And\ndrink often, between whiles good ale or wine, and sing a song to the\nharp\"--for he had taught me harp playing, in which I had great delight,\nand which he loved much, and everyone said that none could play the\nharp like me in all Scotland; \"and forget not either often to throw the\nlance at the target in the monastery garden. Much book reading withers\nthe body.\"\n\nAnd I remembered that my dear father's last words had been just the\nsame. And often and often I stole away to my dear father's hill,\nbrought forth the hammer, exercised myself in hammer throwing by star\nlight, and sat then for hours before the cavern, and listened to the\nroar of wind, wood, and wave.\n\nAnd now it often seemed to me as if, in such moods, I came nearer to\nthe truth than through all the books of the Christian priests, and\nheathen philosophers.\n\nAnd I almost believe I shall not stay much longer in the monastery.\n\nEspecially since, lately, a skald from Halogaland visited the\nmonastery, and told of the life at the court of King Harald; of his\nlordly royal hall, in which twenty skalds by turns play the harp.\n\nAnd how the boldest heroes ever willingly enter his service.\n\nAnd how year by year his warlike expeditions are crowned with victory.\n\nAnd of Gunnlodh, his wonderfully beautiful golden-haired daughter, who\npledges the bravest heroes and the best skalds in the horn.\n\nSince then, my inclination no longer turns towards psalm-singing and\nvigils.\n\nBut certainly they will not easily let me leave the monastery.\n\nFor because I can write Latin and Greek well, Aaron, the new Abbot, the\nItalian, who has succeeded the good peace-loving Aelfrik, makes me\nunceasingly write out manuscripts, which they then sell for a great\nprice, in Britain, and even in Germany.\n\nAnd Aaron is very sharp upon my track, because I seem to him to lack\ntrue Christian zeal.\n\nAnd did he know that upon these parchment sheets, whereupon I ought to\nhave written out, for the seventeenth time, the treatise of Lactantius\n\"de mortibus persecutorum,\" I have, by night, written out the history\nof my dear father--it would not pass without many days' fasting, and\nsome score of penitential psalms.\n\nLately he actually threatened me to have \"some one\" scourged, who ever\nagain came too late for the Hora.\n\nThat \"someone\" was I. For I had just begun to write about the battle on\nthe Singing Swan, and could not tear myself away from it when the Hora\nbell called.\n\nBut ere the son of Halfred the Sigskald endures scourging on the\nback,--rather will I slay Aaron and all his Italian monks.\n\nBut for slaying I need something different from this copying style.\n\n                           *   *   *   *   *\n\nThus far had I written by Good Friday.\n\nFor a long while could I not contrive to write further. For the hatred,\njealousy, and mistrust of Aaron and his hangers-on--there are many of\nhis Italian countrymen come with him from Rumaberg--grow constantly\ngreater. He has forbidden me to write by night.\n\nOnly by day, and in the library, no longer in my cell, may I write. And\nthe transcript of Lactantius I am to deliver to him on the appointed\nparchment by Whitsuntide, on pain of seven days' fasting.\n\nMy resentment increases against this priestly tyranny.\n\nOnly rarely, and by stealth, can I get at these pages. Also I can only\nwith great difficulty reach my dear father's hill. They track my lonely\nwanderings.\n\nIt will soon come to open war. At any rate I will provide myself with a\nsure weapon.\n\n                           *   *   *   *   *\n\nWith difficulty did I, yesterday evening, in the sleeve of my frock,\nbring my dear father's hammer into the monastery. I have hidden it in\nthe outer court, but where--that I do not trust even to these pages. I\nthink much over the question of my dear father, and I believe that soon\nI shall find the truth.\n\n                           *   *   *   *   *\n\nFor three days I could not write at all. The skald from King Harald's\ncourt has again been a guest in the monastery.\n\nI have made him tell me all about the life at that court. It is just as\nin my dear father's days. Certainly King Harald and all his courtiers\nare heathens, and their warlike expeditions are mostly against\nChristian kings and bishops. But that does not make me waver in my\npurpose, which is firmly resolved. He told me much about Gunnlodh.\n\nIn twenty nights a ship of King Harald's will sail again into the\nharbour from...\n\n                           *   *   *   *   *\n\nI know now the answer to Halfred's question.\n\nThere are no heathen Gods.\n\nBut neither is there any Christian God, who, almighty, all merciful,\nall wise, allowed that the father should be slain by the son.\n\nRather, that only happens upon earth which is necessary, and what men\ndo and do not, that must they do and not do; as the north wind must\nbring cold, the south wind warmth; and as the stone thrown must fall to\nthe earth. Why must it fall? No one knows. But it must.\n\nBut men should not sigh and question and despair, rather rejoice in\nhammer throwing and harp playing, in sunshine and Greek wine, and in\nthe beauty of women.\n\nFor that is a lie that it is a sin to long for a beautiful woman.\nOtherwise must the human race die out; if all become so devout as no\nmore to long for a woman.\n\nAnd the dead are dead, and no longer living.\n\nOtherwise had the shade of my dear father long since appeared to me, at\nmy earnest entreaty.\n\nOf what alone, however, man should believe; of that I will speak\nhereafter.\n\nWithout fear shall he live, and without hope shall he die.\n\nIn this monastery, however, will I remain no longer than----.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER XIX.\n\n\nThus far had he written, the God forsaken Brother Irenaeus. Here fell\nthe righteous judgment of Heaven upon him.\n\nI, Aaron of Perusia, called by the grace of God to feed these lambs of\nthe holy Columban, had also the grace given to me to drive the diseased\nsheep from the flock.\n\nLong was I on the track of him and his worldly, heathenish, sinful,\nungodly, yea God-blaspheming doings; his guilty conscience had rightly\nboded this. Step by step I had him watched by Italian brethren, full of\ngodly zeal, without his observing it. The most pious of them, Brother\nIgnatius of Spoletum, succeeded in winning his confidence--for stupidly\nunsuspicious are they--these barbarians--through often allowing him to\nentertain him with harp playing, Irenaeus begged from him one day some\nink powder from his store, as he had used up his appointed portion, and\nfrom the \"Head of the Pharisees\"--thus the shameless sinner termed his\nabbot and chief shepherd--could not obtain fresh supplies, without\ndelivering over what he had written with the former supply.\n\nBrother Ignatius at once, as was his pious obligation, told all to me,\nhis abbot. But the ink powder he gave to him, with that wisdom of the\nserpent which is well pleasing to God in his priests.\n\nSoon thereafter the sinner set out again upon one of those secret\nexpeditions which have ever been his wont, remaining out the whole\nnight when some errand had allowed him to escape from the monastery. I\nnever forbade him to go out, for I hoped through one of these secret\nexpeditions, most easily to discover his hidden doings. I sent, spies\nafter him every time; but every time he suddenly and mysteriously\ndisappeared among the wooded crags along the shore.\n\nThis time I myself sent him out, and as soon as he had left the\nmonastery court I at once made a most rigorous search through the whole\nof his cell.\n\nThere at last I found, after much labour, these blasphemous pages,\nwritten very small, in his accursed graceful handwriting, and artfully\nhidden in a crevice between two stone slabs of the floor.\n\nI took the devil's work with me, and read and read, with growing\nhorror. So much sin, so much worldliness, so much heathenish delight in\nfighting and singing, in drinking and carnal love, so much, finally, of\ndoubt, of unbelief, of naked blasphemy, had, under the roof of the holy\nColumban, under my pastoral staff, grown up, and been written out!\n\nAbhorrence seized upon me, and holy indignation.\n\nForthwith I summoned the Italian brethren to special secret council and\njudgment. I pointed out to them the deadly poison of these writings,\nwhich indeed were full of the seven deadly sins; and the unanimous\nsentence was pronounced. First, three hundred lashes with the scourge;\nthen immuring in the chastisement cell, with vinegar, water, and bread,\nuntil repentant contrition and the fullest amendment were made\nmanifest.\n\nImpatiently we awaited the return of the accursed sinner.\n\nWith the vesper bell he entered the door of the monastery court.\n\nImmediately I placed myself before the door, shot the iron bolt,\nand called forward the Italian brethren. The greater number, the\nAnglo-Saxons, who were well disposed towards the blasphemer, on account\nof his sinful harp playing, and lukewarm in zeal for the Lord, I had\nbefore collected in the refectory, and locked up until the offender\nshould be secured.\n\nHastily the Italians came, and behind them several armed bondmen of the\nmonastery. Then, in place of all accusation, I held up these pages\nbefore the miserable wretch, and pronounced the agreed upon sentence.\n\nThen, ere we were aware, the God-detested criminal sprang with\nlightning speed to the cistern in the court, and drew forth from behind\nit a frightful horrible hammer.\n\n\"Dear hammer of Halfred, aid his son today,\" he cried in a threatening\nvoice.\n\nAnd the next thing was--it seemed to me as though the Heavens fell upon\nmy head and neck--I sank upon the ground.\n\nOnly after a long while did I awake again.\n\nThen I lay upon my bed, a man given up, and the brethren from Italy\nlamented around my couch; and recounted that the furious Samson had,\nwith a second blow, shattered the bolt on the door, and made his\nescape. The monastery servants, indeed, followed him, and several of\nthe brethren, led by brother Ignatius. But when the fugitive suddenly\nturned, and slew the foremost of the pursuers, one of the monastery\nservants, who would have seized him, with the frightful hammer, and\nstruck down brother Ignatius, severely wounded, the others gave up the\npursuit. At once he again disappeared, as always, among the cliffs and\nwoods.\n\nNever have we seen him since, although from the very day of my\nawakening I had him carefully searched for all along the coast. The\ncavern of which these accursed pages speak could we not find. I would\nhave had the bones of the old heathen murderer thrown into the sea.\nProbably the son concealed himself there, until he could leave the\nisland on some ship. I however, in consequence of the blow from his\nhammer, which shattered my shoulder and collar bone, on one side, have\nto suffer all my life long from a hideous twist of the neck, which is\nexceedingly prejudicial to the dignity of an abbot.\n\nThis sinful book of abominations however, I sent to Rome, to the holy\nBishop, with the question, whether we should burn it, or preserve it,\nto aid in tracing and convicting the escaped monk, should we succeed in\ncapturing him again?\n\nFor a long long time came no answer.\n\nBut after many many years the book came back from Rome, with the\ncommand to keep it--only the blasphemous passages therein were\nerased--and as a warning example to others, was the Abbot of St.\nColumban to append to these pages an account from an accompanying\nletter of the Archbishop Adaldag of Hamburg, of how dreadful a fate\nhad, through the righteous judgments of God, ended this apostate's\nsinful life of the highest earthly enjoyment; which he--this may\nconsole us--will doubtless have to expiate in the eternal torments of\nhell.\n\nFrom the Archbishop's letter it appeared there could be no doubt that\nour perjured Brother, Irenaeus, is none other than one who, in all the\ncourts of the north, has been for many years celebrated as a warrior\nand singer, and crowned with all earthly fame and happiness, Jarl\nSigurd Halfredson; who appeared suddenly at the court of King Harald of\nHalogaland--none knew whence he came--with one of the skalds of the\nKing, and through hammer throwing, and harp playing, soon won for\nhimself such renown that King Harald gave him three castles, the\ncommand of all his armies, and his daughter Gunnlodh in marriage.\n\nBut King Harald was the most furious Christian hater, and the bitterest\nopposer of the Gospel in all the North.\n\nAnd for long years Jarl Sigurd led the troops of King Harald, and\nalways led them to victory.\n\nThe Lord at that time tried his own with severe affliction. He had\nturned his face from them, and the vassals of the Bishops, and of the\nChristian princes of the North, could not stand before Jarl Sigurd, and\nhis dreaded hammer.\n\nBut the end of this man of blood was horrible, and therefore it has\nbeen--by the command of the holy Father--copied from the letter of the\nArchbishop, as a fearful warning to all who read these pages.\n\nAs he, that is to say, after once more in a great battle overthrowing\nthe Bishop's troops, was pursuing them in sinful joy, and shouting\n\"victory, victory!\" he was mortally wounded by an arrow in the breast.\n\nKing Harald caused his heathen priests and the skalds to draw near to\nthe right side of the death bed, to console him with songs of Valhalla.\n\nThe wounded man waved them away with his hand.\n\nThen drew near, on the other side of the dying, three Christian\npriests, who had been made prisoners in the battle, and would have\ngiven him the holy last Sacrament, if he acknowledged the Lord.\n\nIndignantly the godless sinner repulsed them with his arm. And when\nKing Harald, astonished, asked him in whom then he believed, if not in\nthe heathen Gods, nor in the white Christ? he laughed and said--\"I\nbelieve in myself, and my strength. Kiss me once more, Gunnlodh, and\ngive me Greek wine in a golden cup.\"\n\nAnd he kissed her, and drank, and said--\n\n\"Glorious it is to die in victory\"--and died.\n\nBut he remained unhonoured and unburied by heathen priests and\nChristians, since he had defiantly rejected both.\n\nSo then it is certain and set forth as a warning to all--but to us a\nrighteous consolation--that the God accursed soul of this most\nblasphemous of all sinners must burn in hell for ever and ever--Amen.\n\n\n\n\n                              POSTSCRIPT.\n\n\nWhat I here wrote down, years since, as my belief concerning the fate,\nafter death, of this abandoned sinner, has been fully confirmed by a\ndelightful testimony.\n\nThat is to say, Brother Ignatius--who lately died--and certainly in\ngreat sanctity--was before his death honoured by a wonderful vision.\n\nSaint Columban, himself, in a dream, led him by the hand into hell, and\nthere he saw, in the deepest pit of sulpher, Brother Irenaeus, burning\nwhole and entire.\n\nBut upon his left shoulder blade, on the spot where he struck me, his\nAbbot, sat an infernal raven, and hacked unceasingly through the\nshoulder even to his blaspheming heart.\n\nOf this has Brother Ignatius assured us before his death. And therefore\nhave I hereunto add this also, about the raven and the shoulder blade,\nin order that all who read these pages, but especially the disciples of\nthe holy Columban in this monastery, may learn the chastisement which\nawaits him who lifts heart and hand against his soul's shepherd, the\nAbbot.\n\n\n\n                                 AMEN.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 1: \"Oski,\" in reality one of the special forms of Odin, is,\nin the Scandinavian mythology, the god who fulfils all the desires of\nmen.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Here the parchment is pierced through, and with different\nink three crosses are signed over the burnt out part.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Cup sacred to Bragi, the god of poetry. At the Yule feast\nthe heathen were wont, while the Bragi cup was passing round, to pledge\nthemselves by vows to the performance of deeds of special danger or\nrenown. They swore upon the Bragi cup, or upon the boar's head, which\nwas the principal dish of the feast.]\n\n[Footnote 4: A poetical expression of the Edda for the beginning of\ndrunkenness.]\n\n[Footnote 5: \"Brisingamene,\" the necklace of Freya, the goddess of\nlove, was the symbol of female charm and attraction.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _i.e._ Peacebringer.]","title":"Saga of Halfred the Sigskald: A Northern Tale of the Tenth Century","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":25673}