"So, you have had your will, King. Know, we got a child together. When you took me in, I wished you well; and I do not yet wish you ill. Do as I say, and it may be we can still halt the bad luck you have sown in my womb.

"Our child," she continued, "must be born mv dersea; for mine is the blood of Ran. Be down by your boathouses this time next winter, and look for her." Pain crossed her mouth. "If you fail, the Skjoldungs will suffer."

But as the seasons went by, the king forgot what his elf-love had asked of him. Indeed, she seemed so strange to everything else he knew, he sometimes wondered if she had been a dream.

But she had not been a dream—and what she had augured would most tragically come to pass.

Also by Paid Anderson published by Ballantine Boo\s:

BRAIN WAVE THE BROKEN SWORD FIRE TIME A MIDSUMMER TEMPEST

HROLF KRAKE’S SAGA

A Del Rey Book

BALLANTINE BOOKS · NEW YORK

Poul Anderson

To my favorite Finnish spellbinders— Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Emil Petaja

A Del Rey Book

Published by Ballantine Books

Copyright © 1973 by Poul Anderson

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Ballantine Books of Canada, Ltd., Toronto, Canada.

ISBN 0-345-25846-0

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition: October 1973 Second Printing: July 1977

Cover art by Darrell Sweet

THE HISTORY OF HROLF KRAKI: Foreword by Poul Anderson

A book should speak for itself. But since this is not a modem fantasy, you the reader may like to know its background.

In contrast to the Volsungasaga, whose core is a story from the Rhineland, the cycle of Hrolf Kraki and his heroes is purely Northern. Once it was widely known and many-branched, deep in the souls and the songs of the folk. But it did not have the same good luck as the tale of Sigmund, Sigurdh Fafnir's-Bane, Brynhild, and Gudhrun: to get a sinewy prose narrative and to inspire poems which have survived in their entirety. Hence, today it is nearly forgotten. It deserves to be remembered anew.

The germ of it is close in age to that of the Nibelungenlied and contemporary with Beowulf. In fact, it and the latter throw a great deal of light on each other and include a number of the same people. The most conspicuous example is King Hrothgar, whose hall Beowulf rid of the monsters. In the homeland version he is Hrolf’s uncle Hroar. Enough additional identifications have been made to leave no doubt.

Now this can be dated rather closely. Gregory of Tours, in his History of the Franks, mentions a Danish king—whom a slightly later chronicle calls Geatish—Chochuaicus, who fell in the course of a massive raid on Holland. He has to be that lord whom Beowulf calls Hygelac and Hrolf (and certain other Northern remnants) Hugleik. On that basis, we can say with reasonable confidence that he was indeed a Geat. We are not sure whether this people lived in Jutland or the Gotaland part of Sweden, then an independent kingdom. I think the second is more likely. In any case, since that leader was real, no doubt others were whose names loom far larger in tradition: such as Beowulf and Hrolf themselves.

Hugleik died between 512 and 520 A.D. Thus Hrolf flourished two or three decades later. This was during the Volkerwanderung period, when Rome had gone under and the Germanic tribes were on the move, as wild a time as the world has ever seen. We can understand why Hrolf Kraki was gloriously remembered, why the saga tellers generation by generation brought every hero they could to his court, even if this meant giving less and less of the cycle to the king himself. His reign was—by comparison, anyhow; in story, at least —a moment of sunshine during a storm which raged for centuries. He became to the North what Arthur did to Britain and Charlemagne, afterward, to France. On the morning of Stiklestad, five hundred years later and away off in Norway, the men of King Olaf the Saint were wakened by a skald who chanted aloud a Bjarkamaal: one of those lays wherein the warriors of the pagan Dane-King Hrolf were called to their last battle.

Fragments of it have come down to us. We know also the Bjarkarimur, a different and late set of verses. In his chronicle of Danish legend and history, the monk Saxo Grammaticus (c. 1150-1206) gives still another poem, in a long Latin paraphrase from which we can only attempt to reconstruct the original. (A sample is in Chapter I of "The Tale of Skuld," and some other parts have been worked into a form more in period for Chapters II and III.) This book—which likewise includes the oldest extant account of Hamlet—tells the story of Hrolf. In addition we find mention of it in Snorri Sturlason's Younger Edda and Heinlinskringla, the synopsized Skjoidunga-saga, and scattered references elsewhere. The principal sources are a few Icelandic manuscripts devoted wholly to the legend. Unfortunately, no copy of these is from before c. 1650, and both the style and the logic leave something to be desired.

AH the sources contradict each other, and occasionally themselves, on various points. Moreover, they are too sparse, leave too much unexplained, for the modern reader who is not a specialist in the early North.

I have long wanted to make a reconstruction, if not the reconstruction: put together the best parts, fill in the gaps, use the old words where they seem right and otherwise find new ones. My gratitude is great to Ian and Betty Ballantine and to Lin Carter for this chance to try.

Many such choices and suppositions must be controversial, or sheerly arbitrary. However, we can leave to scholars the pleasant pastime of arguing over details. To me, the most important questions turned on how the narrative might be made enjoyable to read while staying faithful to its originals.

For instance, from my viewpoint and doubtless yours, too many names begin with H- and even Hr-. I did not feel free to change this, unless one of the sources gave an alternative; but I have tried to write so as to minimize the chance of confusion. For similar reasons I have used modem place names throughout, generally the English versions, except for territories like Svithjodh which no longer exist.

A greater hazard lies in the very spirit of the saga. Here is no Lord of the Rings, work of a civilized, Christian author— though probably it was one of Tolkien's many wellsprings. Hrolf Kraki lived in the midnight of the Dark Ages. Slaughter, slavery, robbery, rape, torture, heathen rites bloody or obscene, were parts of daily life. Finns in particular will note the brutality and superstition to which the Scandinavians subjected their harmless people.* Love, loyalty, honesty beyond the most niggling technicalities, were only for one's kindred, chieftain, and closest friends. The rest of mankind were foe-men or prey. And often anger or treachery broke what bonds there had been.

Adam Oehlenschlager, writing in the Romantic era, could sentimentalize Helgi, Hroar, and Hrolf. I would not. If nothing else, we today need a reminder that we must never take civilization for granted.

I hope you will bear with that, as well as the necessarily sprawling character of the tale and what we today feel as a lack of psychological depth. The latter merely reflects how those folk thought of themselves. To us, their behavior seems insanely egoistic; but to them, each was first a member of his family and only second—however greedy for wealth or fame —himself. The hero is no one of them, but rather the blood of Skjold the Sheaf-Child, which coursed through many different hearts.

I felt obliged to give you some idea of how those lives and that society worked. Yet my aim was not at a hypothetical historical reality, but a myth. Therefore I have put the narrative in the mouth of a person in tenth-century England, when the cycle would have reached its full development—a woman, who would be less likely than a man to use the spare saga style. Of course, she brings in not just the supernatural, but numerous anachronisms. The Scandinavia she describes is, in most respects, the one she herself knows.

As for personal names, those of the gods are in their

*At least, the sagas call them Finns, though many of them were doubtless actually Lapps.

modern forms. Since those of humans are exotic anyway, they have been left in the Old Norse. Spellings have occasionally been modified, though, to make both printing and reading easier. For those readers who care, pronunciations go about as follows, accents always being on the first syllable:

a: Generally broad as in ah.

aa: Midway between aw and oh.

dh: The edh, like th in this.

ei. ey: As in rein, they.

g: Always hard, as in get.

gn: Both letters pronounced.

j: like y in yet.

kn: Both letters pronounced.

ng: Always as in ring.

ö : As in German or, roughly, English oo in good.

oa: Two vowels, oh-ah.

th: The thorn, like th in thunder.

u: Long except when followed by a doubled consonant

(Sku ld vs. Gunnar.)

y: Like German ü or, roughly, English

æ. : Like German ä or, roughly English eh. But never mind any of this unless you are especially interested. All that really matters is the story.

—Poul Anderson

HROLF KRAKI'S SAGA

Though life is lost, one thing will outlive us: memory sinks not beneath the mould.

Till the Weird of the World stands, unforgotten, high under heaven, the hero's name.

—The Bjarkamaal

OF THE TELLING

There was a man called Eyvind the Red, who dwelt in the Danelaw of England while Æ thelstan was king. His father was Svein Kolbeinsson, who had come there from Denmark and often made trading voyages back. When old enough, Eyvind went along. Yet he was more restl ess and eager for a name than Svein, and at last took service under the king. In a few years he rose high, until at Brunanburh he fought so mightily and led his followers so well that Æ thelstan gave him full friendship and wished him to stay always in the royal household. Eyvind was not sure if he wanted that for the rest of his life, and asked leave to go visit his old homestead.

He found Svein readying for another journey, and decided to embark. In Denmark they got hospitality from the chieftain Sigurdh Haraldsson. This man had a daughter, Gunnvor, a fair maiden whom Eyvind soon began to woo. The fathers thought it would be a match good for both their houses; and when Eyvind returned to England, he brought Gunnvor as his bride.

Then he must attend the king, who spent that winter in travel. Gunnvor came too. She won the heart of ladies in the court, for she could speak much about foreign lands and ways. Though Æ thelstan was unwed, news of this came to him: especially of a long saga from olden days that she was relating. He called her to the building where he sat among his men. "These are gloomy nights," he chided her, laughing. "Why do you give the women a pleasure you refuse me?"

"I was only telling stories, lord," she said.

"Good ones, though, from what I hear," answered the king.

Still she looked unhappy. Eyvind took the word on her behalf: "Lord, I know something of this, and it may not be fit for your company." His eye dwelt on the bishop who sat near. "It is a heathen tale." He had not given out that he still offered to the elves.

"Well, what of that?" asked Æ thelstan. "If I have among my friends a man like Egil Skallagrimsson—"

"There is no harm in hearing about the forefathers, if we do not forget they were in error," said the bishop. "Rather, it helps us to understand today's heathen, and thus learn how best to bring them to the Faith." After a little, he added thoughtfully: "I must confess, I spent my youth studying abroad and know less about you Danes than do most Englishmen. I would be grateful if you could explain things as you go along, Lady Gunnvor."

The end of it was that she spent many evenings that winter telling them about Hrolf Kraki.

THE TALE OF FRODHI

1

In those days, Denmark was less than it is now. There were Zealand and the smaller islands about this great one. Save for the chalk cliffs of Mon in the south, it is a low country, hills rolling as easily as the rivers flow. Then eastward across the Sound lay Scania. At the narrowest part of that strait, swimmable by any boy, it looks much like its sister; and they say that in an olden year the goddess Gefion plowed Zealand free of the peninsula that she might have it for herself and her man Skjold, Odin's son. But northward, where it juts into the Kattegat, Scania lifts in red heights, the southern end of the Keel.

This is a land whose soil bears well, whose waters swarm with fish and seal and whale, whose marshes are darkened and made thunderous by the wings of wildfowl, whose timber fares afar in the strakes of goodly ships. But that same timber grows in woods well-nigh impassable, the haunt of deer and elk, aurochs and wisent, wolf and bear. In former times the wildernesses reached further and darker than they do now, cut the settlements of men off from each other in lon eliness, sheltered not only outl aws but elves and trolls and other uncanny beings.

North of Scania is the land of the Gotar, whom the English call Geats. It was then a realm in its own right. North of it in turn lay Svithjodh, where dwelt the Swedes; theirs was the biggest and strongest of the Northern countries. West across mountains was Norway, but it was a lot of littl e quarreling kingdoms and tribes. Beyond it and Svithjodh live the Finns. They are mostly wandering hunters and reindeer herders, who speak no tongue akin to any of ours. But they are so rich in furs that, in spite of numbering many among them who are skilled in witchcraft, they are always being raided or laid under scot by Dane, Swede, and Norseman.

Turning south again, to the west of Zealand we find the Great Belt, and beyond that water the is land of Fyn. Then comes the Littl e Belt and then the Jutland peninsula. Jutland is an earth more steep and stern than the rest of what is today the Danish realm. From the wide wind-whistling strands of the Skaw, south to the bogs where men stride on stilts as if they would be storks, and so to the mouth of the mighty Elbe, here is the mother of whole folk who have wandered widely across the world—Cimbri, Teutons, Vandals, Heruli, Angles who gave their name to England, Jutes, Saxons, and more and more.

Not only to gain strength, wealth, and fame, but to halt endless wars and reavings, the Danish kings who held Zealand and Scania strove to bring these others beneath them. And sometimes they would win a battle and be acknowledged overlords here or there. But erelong blades were again unsheathed, and on the roofs of the jarls they had set to steer yonder lands, the red cock crowed. As often as not, this happened because royal brothers fell out with each other.

Theirs was the house of Skjold and Gefion. In England it is told that he—they call him Scyld—drifted to shore in an oarless boat. It was filled with weapons but bore also a sheaf of grain whereon rested the head of the child. The Danes took him for their king, and a great one he grew to be, who gave law and peace and the groundwork of a country. When at last he died, his grieving folk set him adrift in a ship richly laden, that he might go home to that unknownness whence he had come. They believed his father had been Odin. And truth to tell , the blood of the One-Eyed showed itself afterward in many ways, so that some of the Skjol dungs were wise and forbearing l andfathers, others wild and greedy, still others given to peering into things best left alone.

This last was more often true of the Svithjodh kings.

They were the Ynglings, stemming from Frey, and he is no god of the sk y but of the earth, its fruitful ness to be called forth by strange rites, likewise its shadows and all-devouring mould. In their seat of Uppsala, no few of these lords worshipped beasts and wrought wizardries. Withal, they bred their share of doughty warriors, and when at last Ivar Widespan drove them out—long after the tale I will tell you—a man of them became the ancestor of that Harald Fairhair who made Norway into one kingdom.

Between Skjoldungs and Ynglings was scant love and much bloodshed. Between them was also the land of the Gotar. Being fewer in numbers than either set of neighbors, these sought the friendship of both, or at least to play a double game. Yet the Gotar were no weaklings either. Among them was to arise that man the English call Beowulf,

Thus matters stood in the days when Frodhi the Peace-Good became king of Denmark. Of him are many things told, how he won overlordship through battl e and craftiness, then went on to give such laws and keep such a calm that a maiden might carry a sackful of gold from end to end of his realm and be safe. Yet in him was likewise that ravenousness which could show in the Skjoldungs and which had, earlier, caused his own forebear Hermodh to be driven from the royal seat in Leidhra town, into the wilderness. We hear different tales about King Frodhi's ending; but this is the one the skalds like best.

A ship from Norway brought for sale some captured uplanders. Out of these, Frodhi chose two huge young women, long-haired, tangle-haired, dark-haired, high of cheekbone, broad of mouth and nose, slant of eye, clad in stinking skins. They called themselves, in thunder-deep voices, Fenja and Menja. It was told how men's lives were lost in binding them and how they were not really human but of the Jotun race. A wiseman warned Frodhi that they could never have been made captive were there not the will of a Norn in this. But the king did not listen.

He owned a quern named Grotti. Whence it came, no one knows—maybe from one of those dolmens which stand stark around the Danish lands, the very names of their builders long ago forgotten. A witch had said that it could grind forth whatever he wanted; but none had strength to wield the oaken shaft which turned the upper stone. He thought that these women might.

And they did. He set them in a gloomy shed where stood the quern. An old lay tells the story of what followed.

Now are they come to the house of the king,

the twain foresighted, Fenja and Menja.

Sold to Frodhi, the son of Fridhleif,

were these two maidens, mighty in thralldom.

There were the women set to working,

there must they heave the heavy millstone,

and never did Frodhi give aught of freedom.

He bade them sing without cease at the quern.

Then gave the maidens a voice to the mill;

the stones were groaning; it growled in the earth.

Yet told he the maidens they must mill and must mill.

They swung and swung the swift-flying millstone.

To sleep went most of the slaves of Frodhi.

Then sang Menja, beside the millshaft:

"We grind you welfare, Frodhi, and wealth,

manyfold kine, on the mill of luck.

You shall sit in riches and sleep on down

and wake when you wish. Well is it milled!

"Here shall nobody harm any other,

sunder the peace, or slay his fellow,

nor kill the bane of his own dear brother,

though he have the murderer bound and helpless."

But Frodhi for them had no words save these:

"As long may you sleep as the cuckoo keeps still,

or while one may voice a single verse."

"Unwise you were, Frodhi, you darling of folk,

when you did buy us to be your thralls

and saw that we looked to be likely workers,

yet left off asking what land we hail from.

"Hard was the giant known as Hrungnir,

but even more of might had Thjazi.

Idhi and Aarnir are of our blood:

erg-trolls' brethren; of them are we born.

"Never was Grotti made out of granite,

nor out of cliffs were cloven its stones.

Nor do they mill— the maids from the mountains—

knowing not what they are whirling forth.

"Through nine whole winters our strength was waxing

while still we played games beneath the ground.

Then were the maidens ripe in their mightiness.

Hills we upheaved and had on our backs.

"We tumbled boulders on Jotun buildings

and down to the dales, with a noise of doom.

So did we fling the flinders of cliffs

that afterward men made houses out of them.

"Then did we fare, we foresighted sisters,

off to Svithjodh, seeking for war.

Bears we slaughtered and shields we split,

breaking a road through byrnie-clad men.

One king did we raise, and cast down another,

giving the goodly Guthorm our help,

with killin g and fire, till Knui had fallen.

"Through all those years we were yare for battle

and widely were known as warrior maidens.

We shore our way with the sharpened spears,

and blood made dim the blinking blade.

"Now are we come to the house of the king.

Bad luck has made us thralls at the millstone.

Gravel gnaws our feet, we freeze above,

but have room to work— and woe with Frodhi.

"Let the stone now stand and the hands rest still.

I have ground what I must; I will grind no more."

But never the hands may know any rest

until Frodhi says that his greed is sated.

"Now hands shall grasp the hardened spears

and the reddened weapons. Waken, Frodhi!

Waken, Frodhi, if you are willing

to hear our songs and sagas of old.

"Fire I see burning, eastward beacons,

signs which warn of war oncoming.

A host is abroad and hither it hastens

to burn the stronghold that Frodhi built

"You shall be cast from Leidhra's kingship,

from ruddy rings and the quern of riches.

Grip harder, maiden, the millstone-handle,

for now we are grinding blood on the ground.

"Mightily grinding the grist of doom,

we see how many are marked for death.

Now we are shaking the iron shafts

upholding the quern. Hard will we swing it

"Hard will we swing it The son of Yrsa

alone may redeem what is lost to you:

he who is both the brother of Yrsa

and the child she has nursed, as well we do know."

The maidens were grinding, and great was their might;

young they stood there in Jotun wrath.

The quern fell down and lay in the dust,

the millstones shivered and shattered to bits.

Then sang the maidens who came from the mountains:

"Now have we toiled as you told us, Frodhi,

and ground out your weird. We have worked long enough!"

And so in their anger Fenja and Menja brought forth a viking host which fell upon the king's burg and slew him. As to what became of those giantesses, there are different stories; but all agree that here a fate was laid upon the Skjoldungs.

Frodhi left three sons, Halfdan, Hroar, and Skati. They fell into strife over who should be foremost. It has ever been the curse of the lands across the North Sea, that their kings beget many sons and one's claim is as good as another's, whether he be born of a queen, a leman, a thrall-woman, or a chance meeting—can he but raise men who hope to gain if he wins.

This time luck chose Halfdan. He even died in bed, albeit rather young. He left two sons of his own. The older was called Frodhi from the grandfather. The younger, being born after Halfdan's death, got the name of the latter.

I have spoken of jarls. They are not the same as English earls, though the words sound much alike, A jarl is a headman second only to the king. Sometimes a king will set him over a part of the country; or sometimes a jarl will himself become king in all but name. So it was while these boys Frodhi and Halfdan were small. Einar, jarl of the lands around the royal seat Leidhra, took charge.

He was a sensible man who did not want to see Denmark again ripped apart. To this end, he got each of the brothers taken as king by the yeomen, when these gathered at the meetings known as Things. But they were hailed separately. Halfdan was to rule in Zealand, Frodhi in Scania.

Einar Jarl likewise arranged marriages after the lads were grown. Haifdan wed Sigridh, daughter of a small king on the island of Fyn. By her he got three children who lived. Oldest was the daughter Signy, who in due course married Einar's son and heir S æ vil. Five years younger than her was the boy Hroar, and two years younger than him was his brother Helgi.

The custom was that high-born children should be reared in the homes of folk of somewhat lower rank. Thus they learned those skills which become a youth or a maiden; and bonds of friendship were forged. Hroar and Helgi Halfdansson were taken by Regin Erlingsson, the reeve of the shire which held Leidhra. He grew as fond of them as if they had been his own.

King Halfdan was mild and easygoing. The folk loved him for his openhandedness and for the just judgments he gave.

But meanwhile King Frodhi in Scania had turned into a man harsh and hungry. He married Borghild, a king's daughter from among those Saxons who dwell just south of Jutland. By this means he got allies who, able to cross the Baltic Sea, awed Svithjodh enough that the Swedes kept off his back. She died in giving birth to their son Ingjald, Frodhi sent the babe to its grandfather to raise. Nevertheless, on behalf of it, he dreamed greatly.

And now, full of years, Einar died. Then matters stood like this:

In Leidhra on Zealand dwelt King Halfdan and his queen Sigridh. He was well-liked; but, with scant hankering for war, he kept no very strong guard, nor did he offer resdess men much chance to win fame and booty abroad. His daughter Signy was wife to the jarl S æ vil Einarsson. His sons Hroar and Helgi were mere boys, living with Regin the sheriff about twenty miles from the royal town.

And in Scania brooded King Frodhi.

He plotted with discontented men in Denmark, as well as with headmen among Swedes, G ö tar, and Jutes. Erelong he could call on a great host.

So he took ship across the Sound, lifted his banner and let blow the lur horns. Warriors flocked to him. Too late did the arrow pass from garth to garth, summoning those who would fight for King Halfdan. Looting and burning, Frodhi carried victory wherever he went. In a clash at darkest midnight, he fell upon Halfdan's army, overthrew it, and himself put his brother to death.

Thereafter he called the Danish chieftains to a Thing and made them plight faith. Among those who, to save their lives, laid hands on the golden rings and swore by Njord and Frey and almighty Thor that they would never forsake him—among them was S æ vil Jarl, husband of Halfdan's daughter Signy.

Thereupon Frodhi clinched his standing by marriage to his brother's widow, Sigridh. She had no choice about this, but it was with a bleak face that she went to his bed. And now Frodhi sent after her sons. He gave out that he wanted to see they were well taken care of. Most men supposed the care would be a quick throat-cutting, lest they grow up to avenge their father.

Regin the sheriff had not been at that Thing. When Halfdan's host broke, he sought back to his own home as fast as might be, together with what followers of his were left alive. He knew he would have a few days to batten down against Frodhi—few days indeed. "We can't withstand him," he said. "And I gave my oath to look after those youngsters."

"What can you do?" asked a warrior.

Regin uttered a dour chuckle. "You're a trustworthy enough fellow. However, you have no need to know."

He was a big man, face reddened and eyes bleached by a lifetime of weathers, hair and beard iron-gray, rather paunchy but still a strong and shrewd leader of his shire. The children his wife Aasta had borne to him were long since wedded. Because of this as well as the honor, they two had been glad to give Hroar and Helgi a home.

This was on the Isefjord. It is a broad, well-sheltered bay; the land reaches green to the very edge of the waters, which are ever aclamor with ducks, brant, swans, curlews, gulls, all kinds of fowl. Most trees had been cleared away. But wilderness still brooded on the southern rim of sight; and closer at hand, woodlots remained for squirrels and boys to scramble in. The homes of yeomen were strewn widely amidst the fields, built of planks, with sod roofs from whose smokeholes curled blacknesses that the salt winds quickly scattered. This is a good land, smiling with rye, barley, wheat, and flax beneath the sun and the dizzyingly tall clouds of summer.

Though Regin's dwelling was no royal hall, its black-painted side made one whole edge of a flagged courtyard. The other three were taken up by shed, byre, stable, workshop, and lesser outbuildings. The gable beams of the house were carved into dragon heads to frighten off trolls. On the eastern end, these looked into a shaw where Regin led the neighborhood in offering to the gods.

A path sloped down to a boatshed. Out upon the bay lay several islands. The nearest, while small, was thickly wooded. There dwelt an aged yeoman named Vifil, alone save for two great hounds. Most folk shunned him, for he was a strange and curt-spoken one and it was said that now and then he wrought wizardry. But Regin and he were old friends. "If he can tie a breeze in a bag, why should I not take his help?" the sheriff would laugh. "Or do you want to row through a foul wind?" Moreover, Vifil had always been a staunch upholder of Halfdan, whenever younger men grumbled that the king was a sluggard. Sometimes Hroar and Helgi took a boat and called upon him.

No mirth uprose now when Regin rode into his garth. The boys burst forth at the hoof-clatter. Shouts, questions, boasts torrented from their lips. Then they looked upon their fosterfather, and it was as if a sword chopped off their voices. Aasta came out behind them, followed by the household workers, and saw, and spoke naught. For a time stillness filled the long evening light.

At last the sheriff dismounted, with a creak of leather and jingle of iron. He stood hunched, his hands dangling empty. Wordless, a carl of his led the horse away. Hroar clenched fists at sides and all but screamed: "Our father is fallen! He's fallen, is he not?"

"Aye," sighed from Regin. "I saw his banner go down, where we tried to rally by firelight after Frodhi surprised us in our camp. Later I hid myself—"

"I would not have skulked from my father's need," said Helgi, half strangled by tears he failed to hold back,

"We could do naught," Regin told him, "and I had you, his sons, to think about. Toward dawn we be gan to find each other, we Isef jord men. One had been wounded and lay with no one paying much heed to him till at last he got strength to crawl away. He told how Frodhi slew the bound Halfdan." After a wait, he added: "They spoke together first. Frodhi said he must do this because only thus could he bring back a single kingdom, as it was in the days of his namesake the Peace-Good. Halfdan answered him steadfastl y. May you two meet your own endings as well."

Aasta's fingers twisted a towel she held. "So young!" she wept.

Regin nodded heavily. A breeze ruffled his sweat-dank mane; a gull mewed. "I don't suppose Frodhi, having slain the lynx, will leave the cubs in their den," he said.

His gaze dwelt on them. Hroar had twelve winters and Helgi ten; but already the younger brother was more tall and broad-shouldered, for the older was of short and slender build. Both had great shocks of sun-whitened hair falling around their necks, around brown faces which had begun to show the Skjoldung cragginess; amidst that, their big eyes gleamed lightning-blue. They were clad alike, in leather doublets over plain gray wadmal shirts and trews. But Hroar clutched a wooden staff whereon he had been carving runes, to help him self learn those signs, while Helgi bore at his belt a sling, a pouchful of stones, and a hunting knife.

“ I. . . wish ... I might have known my father better," Hroar whispered.

"I'll be content to get revenge for him," Helgi gulped. He did not sound altogether like a child.

"For that, you must stay alive," Regin warned. "I cannot keep you. Did I try, we'd burn in this house after Frodhi's men ringed us in. Better for you that we, your friends, five to help another day."

"They can't flee into the woods as if they—as if they were outlaws!" Aasta cried.

Helgi tossed his head. "We can live quite well among the wolves, Fostermother," said he.

"Maybe; but wolves command no swords," Regin said. "I have a plan. We'll talk of it later." He shuffled toward his wife. "Now give me food and a draught of beer, and let me sleep. O gods, let me sleep!"

It was a silent welcoming feast.

Before dawn, Regin rose. He went to the shut-bed which the brothers shared, drew back its panel, and shook them awake, a finger laid on his mouth. Mutely they donned their clothes and followed him down to the water. The season was midsummer and the night was light, a paleness overhead where only a few stars glimmered, the bay like a burnished shield. Most softly and slowly, so as to make the least lap-lap of wavelets, he rowed them to Vifii's island.

The yeoman dwelt in a sod hut on the north side. Grounding the boat, man and boys stepped ashore into thick shadows. Frightfully baying came two black shapes, the hounds called Hopp and Ho. When they knew- who the guests were, they wagged their tails and licked hands.

Vifil, aroused, stoked up the hearthfire in the single room, half underground, which was his. Smoke and stench roiled in its air. Through the gloom one had glimpses of his few poor tools—knife, ax, fishnet, bone hooks, soapstone dish, and such-like—also of the kettle and runestaves and oddly knotted ropes wherewith he was said to make magic. He was a tall, gaunt white-beard, dirty and ill-smelling in his motheaten woolens and badgerskin cloak. Yet from beneath their overhanging brows, his eyes sough t not unkindly toward the athel ings.

Regin told what had happened. Vifil nodded; did he have the news beforehand? "Well, I hope you can hide these lads," the sheriff finished, "for if you can't, then I know of no other way to save them."

Vifil tugg ed his whiskers. "That's a bad ‘ un to strive against, him Frodhi," he muttered. But in the end he agreed he had a duty to help as far as he was able.

Regin hugged them farewell. "May luck abide with you," he said roughly.

"I thin k the Norn s who stood at their cradles sang them no common weird," said Vifil.

Regin hastened to the strand ere dawn should break. He spent the rest of that day faring widely about the Isefjord, making sure he was seen. Thus, when Hroar and Helgi were no longer at his home, folk would guess he had taken them away but would not know whither.

Vifil gave them bread, cheese, and stockfish before he led them into the woods. Yonder he had a place for cool storage of the meat and milk he got from his few beasts. It was hardly more than a pit with a roof of branches and turf. One climbed in or out on a kraki, a fir trunk whose stubbed-off limbs made a kind of ladder. The three toiled together, replanting brush till it decked every trace of man-work.

"Belike the king's men will come search this island," Vifil said. "That Frodhi's no fool, him, and he'll learn how your fosterfather and me has long been friends. Maybe they'll not find you if you crouch in here. Meanwhile, don't let nobody spy you from the shore. And . . . I'll do whatever else I can."

He would not let them watch what next he wrought, either in the hut or in a dolmen which stood among gnarled trees.

For a while thereafter, Helgi and Hroar were fairly well off. No boy can grieve long; and they had never really known their father anyway. The fare here was coarse, but their stomachs were young. If they slept on bare dirt, why, this they had done often before when hunting. That Vifil uttered few words was all to the good: it gave them time to swap daydreams. When the sun was high they must keep to the woods, where they ranged with Hopp and Ho after small game or birds' nests. In the light nights before seeking rest, they could swim or even fish. Sometimes, peering across the water to the home of Regin, they felt it as a fading dream, no longer quite real.

But their peace was short-lived. When a thorough rooting about over the sheriffs holdings failed to turn them out, Frodhi bade men scour the whole kingdom. Far and near, north, south, east, west, he kept watches out; he promised rich reward for news of his nephews, and threatened to torture to death whoever dared shelter them. Yet never a worthwhile word did anyone bring him; and in the look of Queen Sigridh there began to wax a chilly joy.

At length Frodhi decided a magic must lie in this, and sent for those who had knowledge of darknesses.

III

For a time the great hall at Leidhra guested one spaewife and wiseman after another. Frodhi told them to use their farsight and scan Denmark up and down, islands and skerries as well as mainland. But they saw nothing.

Thereafter he had wizards sought out, not merely those with a little spellcraft or forecasting dreams, but men who seethed witchy brews in cauldrons and were said to ride on the night wind or raise the dead or call upon beings more fearsome than that. These were most often wanderers, shunned by all goodfolk. The household hirelings and thralls shrank from them and drew signs to ward off a curse; the burliest guardsman could not wholly hide a shudder.

Three came at last whom Frodhi received well, seating them straight across the longfire from him and bidding the queen bring them meat and drink with her own hands. "The days are changed from when I served kings and warriors," said the tall ruddy-braided woman sadly. "Never did I look to play hostess to those who would ferret out the sons of my body."

Her new husband gave her a cool regard. "Serve them you shall, my Sigridh," he answered; and she yielded. It was whispered among the workers, who sometimes overheard what went on in the royal b ower, that Frodhi was fast tam ing her, not by beatings which would have aroused rage, but by skilled lust and unbending will. He was one of the short Skjoldungs, yet quick on his feet, quicker with a blade, swiftest and deadliest in his cunning. Sleek brown hair and close-trimmed beard lay around a face lean, hook-nosed, and wintry-eyed. He dressed well: on this evening, a gold headband and arm-ring, a green kirtle trimmed with marten, red trews cross-gaitered in white kid.

With S igridh he had made a lawful settl ement, paying her weregild for Halfdan's killing and a costly morning gift after he wed her. She spoke little and laughed never, but doubtless she hoped to work on him enough to save something from the wreck. As for the rest of the Danes, mostl y they disliked him because of his laying heavy scot on them and making judgments which went harshly to his own advantage. But no other Skjoldung was in sight, and surely Odin would lay wrath on this land, did it not go beneath a man of his own house.

The wizards were an unkempt gang in musty black robes; Finnish blood showed in them. After the tables had been cleared away, they trod forth, set up their kettles above the fire, cast their runes and cried their jagged chants before the pillars of the high seat. The right-hand post was carved to show Odin, father of magic; the left showed Thor, but it was as if that night a murk lay across the Ham merswinger. Somewhere a wolf ho wled and a wildcat squalled, sounds which had not been heard near Leidhra for many years. Men huddled back on the benches. Frodhi sat moveless, waiting.

At last the gray and wrinkled spokesman of the three said: "Lord, we can only learn that the boys are not on land-earth; yet they are not far away from you."

The king stroked his beard and spoke slowly: "We have sought them far and wide. I hardly think they're nearby. Still, I remember now that islands do lie close offshore from the house of their fosterfather."

"Then seek the nearest of those first, l ord," said the wizard. "Nobody l ives there save a poor smallholder. However, such a fog was around the island, we could not peer into his home. We think he must be very wise and not all that he seems."

"Well, we'll try," said th e king. "Strange would it be if a wretched fisherman could hide those fellows and dare hold them back from me."

Indeed a thick mist had arisen on the Isefjord that night. Early in the morning, Vifil awoke and told his charges: "Much strangeness is in flight, and mighty fetches have come hither to us. I heard them whisper in the dark, I hear them still in the gray. Rise up, Hroar and Helgi Halfdansson, and keep to my woods this day!"

They sprang to do his bidding.

Before noon, a troop of royal guardsmen rode to the water's edge and told Regin he must furnish them boats. By then the fog had lifted, and sunlight flared off their helmets and spears. Vifil greeted them as sullenly as he watched them while they searched. After hours, they had found nothing. At night Regin must needs guest them, though he did so in stingy wise.

Next day they returned to Leidhra and told of their failure. "Ill must you have hunted," snapped the king. "That yeoman is a master of witchcraft. Go back the same way and see if you can't take him by surprise."

Again the king's men landed to ransack the place. Though Vifil opened everything for them that they asked, never did they see trace of their prey. Again they must go home draggle-tailed.

Meanwhile the wizards had told Frodhi more about eeriness lurking on yonder island, blindnesses which neither they nor those which they sent to spy for them could pierce. When he heard the marshal of his guard, Frodhi grew red and white by turns. He slapped the high seat and shouted: "We've taken enough from that yokel! Tomorrow morning, I myself will seek him out."

Vifil awoke at dawn from a heavy sleep. Troubled, he roused Hroar and Helgi and said to them: "Now it goes ill, for your kinsman Frodhi is himself afoot, and he'll seek your lives with every kind of trick and ill-doing. I'm no longer sure I can save you." He tugged his beard and brooded. "If you try to sit the whole while in the storehouse like before, his kind of search may well turn you up. Best you keep flitting amongst brush and trees. Yet they'll beat the woods for you, so you'll need that lair at the right time. . . . Well, stay in earshot. And when you hear me shout for the hounds, Hopp and Ho, remember it'll be you two I mean, and go to earth."

Hroar nodded grimly, sweat on his cheeks. Helgi grinned; to him, this had been a great game.

The king arrived, not on horseback but in a ship which had sailed from what we today call Roskilde Fjord. The hull bore far more men than Regin's boats might readily carry over. They ran her onto a sandbar, dropped anchor, and waded ashore. Vifil stood leaning on a stall, beneath trees which had begun faintly to turn color. A wind blew cold and shrill, fluttering cloaks. Spearheads blinked, ring-mail rattled.

"Grab him!" Frodhi cried. Hard hands pushed the yeoman forward to meet the king.

Frodhi glowered at him and said word by word: "You're a foul, sly one, aren't you? Tell me at once where my nephews are—for I know that you know!"

Vifil shrugged. "Hail to you, lord," he answered. "How can I ward myself against that kind of charge? Why, if you keep me here, I can't even hold the wolf off my little flock." The guardsmen were spreading out over the cleared patches, headed for the woods. Vifil filled his lungs and yelled, "Hopp and Ho, help out the beasts!"

"What's that you're calling?" asked Frodhi.

"The names of my hounds," said the yeoman blandly. "Look as hard as you want. I don't think you'll be a-finding of any king's sons hereabouts. And really, I don't understand what makes you think I'd hide aught from you, a poor old fisher like me."

Frodhi growled, told off a warrior to watch the islander, and himself took command of the chase. Today they uncovered the storehouse. However, by then the brothers had slipped from it—after the beaters went past—and were in treetops well back of the onward-moving troop.

At eventide the men returned to the hut. Vifil waited. Dithering with rage, the king told him: "Indeed you're a sly one, and I ought to have you killed."

The yeoman met his eyes and said, "That stands within your might, if not your right. Then you'll at least have gotten somewhat for your trek here. Otherwise you'll go home bootless, eh?"

Frodhi clamped fists together and stared around the crowding ring of his warriors. His slaying of bound Halfdan had not really sat well with them. To order death for a helpless gaffer against whom naught could be shown would truly brand him unmanly. No few would forsake him on that account alone, should a foeman arise.

"I cannot let you be slain," said Frodhi between his teeth; "but I do think it's unwise to let you live."

He turned and stalked to his ship.

The crew rowed him to Regin's garth, where he spent the night. And here he demanded the sheriff swear him troth, as the rest of the Danish headmen had already done.

"You give me a thin choice," said Regin. "Besides my holdings, I have wife, children, and grandchildren. So be it, then. As for your unasked question, I tell you as I earlier told your men, I do not know where Hroar and Helgi Halfdansson are."

"No," sneered the king. "Not within a foot or two." Nevertheless he kept from pressing the matter. He could not afford to goad those folk who looked upon Regin as their leader.

Vifil saw where the ship went, and either guessed or foreknew what happened. He called the boys to him and said: "Here you can bide no longer. We'll be under too narrow a watch, the more so when men of the neighborhood will've given up hope of overthrowing Frodhi. Tonigh t I’ll ferry you over. Stay off the highroads while you get out of this shire."

"Where should we go?" wondered Hroar.

"Well," said Vifil, "I've heard as how S æ vil Jarl is your brother-in-law. He'll have a big household, where none'll much mark a couple of newcomers. But he too is now the king's handfast man, so don't you go straight off giving yourselves away to him, or to anybody. Lynx cubs got to fare wary."

IV

S æ vil and Signy dwelt near Haven. Each year when the herring ran, this hamlet came aswarm with fishermen who had beaten their way south down the Kattegat or north out of Baltic waters; merchants joined them, and it roared among the booths ashore. In other seasons Haven was a base for warcraft which lay out on watch lest vikings slip by to harry the Danish coasts. Thus it was no small charge which Sasvil had and he was not a man to whom Frodhi would willingly give grave offense. Maybe one reason the king married Signy's mother was to try to make a bond between himself and the strand-jarl.

When the English first came hither, their great men doubtless built halls like those in the Northlands. They do no more. Let me therefore tell about such a house. It is a long wooden building, with a roof of sod or of shakes, oft-times a clerestory; the beam-ends are apt to be carved in fanciful shapes. If there are two floors, a gallery runs around the walls. Windows are shuttered in bad weather, and belike covered by thin-scraped skins. Inside, one enters through a foreroom, where feet are wiped and outer garments left hanging. Unless the lord is suspicious and commands his guests to leave their weapons here as well, these are brought into the main room and hung up, that the luster of metal and of the painted leather on shields help brighten its gloom.

The ground floor of the hall is hard-packed earth, thickly strewn with rushes, juniper boughs, or other sweet things, often changed. Down the middle run two or three trenches, or sometimes only one, wherein roar the long-fires, that servants feed with wood taken from stacks at the far end. Flanking them goes a double row of great wooden pillars, upbearing the top floor, or the rafters if there is none. They too are graven and colored, to show gods or heroes or beasts and intertwining vines. Against the wainscoted walls, earthern platforms raise the benches a foot or two above the floor. In the middle of one wall, commonly the north, stands the high seat of the master and his lady, held by two lesser posts which are especially holy. Straight across the chamber is a slightly lower seat for the most honored guest. Between the weapons ablink behind the benches are other carvings, skins, horns, torches or rushlights flaring in their sconces.

At mealtimes the women and servants set trestles in front of the benches and lay boards across them. On these go meat and drink, prepared usually in a separate cookhouse for dread of wildfire. Later the tables are removed, and when men have drunk enough, those of higher standing stretch out on the benches to sleep; their followers use the floor.

Shut-beds for the master, mistress, and chief guests may be at either end; or there may be upper rooms; or there may be a bower standing aside from the hall, a narrow building of one or two floors where women spin and weave by day in well-lighted airiness, and at night the well-born sleep free from snoring and eavesdropping.

Around a courtyard cluster the outbuildings. Beyond them may lie the homes, byres, and worksteads of humbler families; and a stockade may enclose everyth ing. Thus many a hall and its attendants make up a whole small town, always abustle with men and women, children and beasts, always alive with talk, song, shouts, smithing, baking, brewing, gaming, jesting, courting, weeping, whatever it is that living beings do.

Besides the dwellers—lord, lady, children, and kin; warriors; yeomen; artisans; craftsmen; free hirelings; thralls—there are sure to be visitors. Some are neighborhood men, come for a bit of trade or gossip or talk about deeper matters. Some are guests invited from further off, as to a wedding or a Yuletide feast. Some are travelers passing through. And some are footloose, fallen on ill days if ever they knew good ones, given food and a strawheap in a stable for the sake of the lord's honor and for whatever tales they can tell from elsewhere.

To this kind of steading did Hroar and Helgi make their way. Vifil had given them food to pack along, and they found no dearth of brooks to drink from. Nonetheless that was a stiff and dangerous trek. He had likewise patched together a pair of hooded cloaks for them, and sent them off with keen redes.

They drew little heed when they limped into S æ vil's garth and begged shelter. Many were tramping that year, after Frodhi's host had cast them out and taken their land for its pay. These two sat quietly in dimness, and next day lent a hand with feeding the kine and cleaning the stalls. "Bide your time," Vifil had said, over and over. "Get your growth first, then your revenge."

After a week the cowherd foreman felt they had better speak to the jarl if they wished to stay on. They neared him toward evening, when he had had several horns of beer before he ate and was feeling cheery. They kept the cowls on their heads and the mantles drawn around their shoulders. In the dull unrestful light, neither S æ vil nor their busy sister Signy knew them. These kin had seldom been together anyway after Regin took in the boys. The jarl shrugged and said, "Small help do I think there is in you; but I shan't refuse you food for a while longer."

Helgi flushed and might have spoken hotly, save that Hroar gave his hand a warning squeeze. They muttered thanks, louted low, and withdrew.

And now through three winters they abode with S æ vil.

They hardly saw him or his wife, save as grandness on the high seat or on horseback. For the most part, they were off doing the meanest work of herding, harvesting, and barnyard chores—more apt to sleep in a haymow or a meadow than in any house. Ever they kept the secret of who they were. Hroar called himself Hrani, while Helgi was Ham, and they said in a few words that they were sons of a smallholder killed in battle, themselves driven off his land. To this same end, they always wore their coverings when in sight of anyone else.

A number of carls teased them, saying they must have misformed skulls or breasts like women. They bit their mouths shut and endured. Alone, they could yarn about that which would someday be theirs, or take out their blood-anger on fowl and hare, or spend hour upon bruising hour in weapon-practice, staves for swords and shields made from stolen planks.

But after the three years, Helgi was thirteen and really starting to shoot up. Hroar, fifteen, was smaller, though lean and lightfooted; he was the thoughtful one of them.

King Frodhi had dwelt in peace all this while, and thus his fears had eased a good deal. He sent word, asking S æ vil and Signy to a midwinter feast. When Helgi heard, he smote the frozen ground and said, "Hroar, we're going along." Nor could his brother talk him out of that. Instead, it was the other way around, until both were eagerly busking themselves to seek their revenge.

V

S æ vil rode off with his lady and twoscore men. The urchins Ham and Hrani plucked at his arm and asked leave to come along. He barked a laugh and told them, "Of course not."

Little snow had fallen thus far. The air lay cold beneath a sky low and heavy as a slab of slate. Fields reached brown, trees stood leafless, farmsteads crouched inward. Here and there a flock of crows jeered "Ha-kra-kra!" Hoofs and wheels rang on the road. Against this, the jarl's troop splashed brightness. All his warriors owned helmets, more than half had byrnies, which gleamed; the blues and greens, yellows and reds of cloaks fluttered back from their shoulders; they were mostly young men, whose merriment stood forth in steam-puffs. Their shaggy pomes trotted briskly ahead.

Signy rode in a wagon carved and painted, trimmed with gold and silver, drawn by four horses of the big Southland stock. With her were a driver, two serving wenches, and supplies of food and gifts. She was a tall woman, the Skjoldung handsomeness in her face and amber-hued braids. Inside a fur coat she wore gaily dyed clothes and lovely ornaments. But no mirth was in her eyes.

Jouncing slowly over the ruts, her cart went at the end of the train. Hence she heard the racket at her back before her husband or his men did. Turning about, she saw two ragged, dirty shapes in hooded cloaks, overhauling.

Because those beasts fit to ride were gone from the hall, Ham and Hrani had caught a pair of unbroken foals in a paddock. With bridles of rope and sticks broken off thornbushes, they somewhat made these mounts carry them. The bucking, plunging, and shying were wild to behold. Ham sat backwards, yelled, flapped his arms, and behaved in every way like a fool. Hrani rode more soberly. Even so, it was his horse which made such a leap as he drew nigh that his cowl fell off.

Signy saw fair locks fly around a face whereon, through grime and gauntness and untrimmed fuzz of beard, she knew her father's looks. She remembered—and had she maybe, during these past three years, begun to suspect? "Hroar!" she gasped as if he had stabbed her. "Then ... then your mate must be Helgi—"

Hroar fought his steed till he mastered it. He covered himself anew and sought back to his lolloping brother. Signy buried her head in her hands and wept.

Word passed along the line that she was troubled. S æ vil trotted rearward. He was a dark man, fork-bearded, given to keeping his own counsel. There in the wagon, beneath the frightened gaze of her servants, sat his wife crying. He drew alongside and asked what her trouble was. How she answered need not be from a later tale-teller. The wellborn were expected to be able to make a verse at any time, and a gift of skaldcraft ran in her blood.

"The end has come

of Skjoldung athelings.

The oak has fallen,

leaving only twigs.

My darling brothers

are riding bareback

while S æ vil's folk

go off to feast."

The jarl sat quiet in the saddle for a bit until he said, most sternly, as he stared at the driver and girls: "Great tidings, but let them not come out."

He spurred toward the lads. They dismounted, to show rum respect and listen more readily. "Go home, you shameless whelps!" he bellowed. "I ought to hang you! It's not fitting for you to be in a troop of good men!" He whirled his horse around and cantered back.

Helgi bristled. "If he thinks—" he began.

Hroar cut him off: "If you think, brother mine, you'll recall how his hand moved, hidden from his followers. It signed us a warning, not a threat. And see, our sister weeps. She must have known me and told him. He doesn't want anybody else to learn it from his words."

"Well," said Helgi, "what should we do now?" They had had no fast-set plan. They merely hoped to spy things out while seeming a pair of nitwits, and afterward do whatever looked best. Could they get near enough to King Frodhi to sink their knives in him, then before the guardsmen slew them call out who they were—but Hroar called that a daydream.

"We'd better not keep these nags," the older youth decided. "Too open a defiance of S æ vil. If he didn't punish us, the rest would ask why. They're more trouble than they're worth, anyway. Let's leave them off at yonder garth and tag along afoot."

Thus they did. When the early dusk fell, S æ vil and Signy took hospitality from a yeoman. Their folk spread warm sleeping bags outside. Hroar and Helgi shivered hungry in a thicket.

They had not far to fare, however. Frodhi was not keeping this Yuletide at Leidhra, but in a lesser hall he owned north of Haven. Most kings traveled about for part of each year, in order to gather news, hear complaints, give judgments, and on the whole strengthen their grips. Besides, truth to tell, their main dwellings must from time to time be cleaned, aired out, and let sweeten.

That tip of Zealand is wind-whipped, a land of moor and sandy hills, thinly peopled. The hall and its outbuildings stood alone, to north a rolling reach of ling gone gray with winter, to south a darkling skeleton woods, one farmstead barely in sight across empty miles. Most months none dwelt here save a few caretakers, who tended, slaughtered, smoked and salted those cattle and swine which guests would eat. The chief building had a single floor, and in front a single door; at the rear it abutted on a wellhouse.

Frodhi the Peace-Good had raised it for two reasons. First, this spot was handily near the middle of what fishermen lived on the north coast and the bay to westward, what farmers plowed the heaths, what hunters or charcoal burners ranged the wilds. Second, here was a clump of oaks taller than elsewhere in these parts, where offerings had always been made. A hall hard by it would gain in holiness, and when its owner was on hand he would be the head butcher and spokesman to the gods.

That was why Frodhi his grandson now chose to keep Yuletide here. Among the heathen, the midwinter rites honor chiefly Thor, who stands between our earth and the giants of endless ice and night. Belief is that on the eve of it, all kinds of trolls and spooks run loose across the world; but next day the sun turns again homeward and hope is reborn.

Moreover, the king meant to talk with different leading men, sound them out, win their friendship by an open-handedness which inwardly griped him. Hence for days, wagons creaked hither, bearing food, beer, mead, and gifts—golden arm-rings and other jewelry, weapons, furs, clothes, silver-mounted harness and drinking horns, glass goblets and stamped coins from the far Southlands. Kine, sheep, and horses, to be slain for the gods and eaten by the folk, milled around in pens. Thralls filled what lowly shelters they could find. Then arrived the king, the queen, and the royal guards.

Since he was asking great men here, each of whom would bring followers, the troop of Frodhi was smaller than was common for him. Besides servants, he brought just his berserkers and a chosen few of those younger sons of yeomen who most often take royal service— chosen for looks, manners, and garb. The rest he gave leave to spend the holy season with their kindred. As I have said, Frodhi had begun to feel at ease in his over-lordship.

Soon guests came, until the stead was a roaring whirlpool. Most shire-dwellers stayed home. There would be no room indoors for them, and they did not like the thought of camping out on Yule Eve. A number of landloupers risked it, for the sake of meat and beer during those few days of their starveling lives. Among them was a witchwife known as Heidh. When Frodhi heard about her, he said she should enter the hall

VI

Hroar and Helgi reached the place in mid-afternoon, an hour or two behind Jarl S æ vil's band. They mingled easily with the throng in the courtyard. Kegs had been broached, bread and cheese and cold meats stood out for whoever would partake, the smell of roasting oxen welled from the cookhouse to warm the bitter air. Men laughed and bragged, ladies gossiped while eyeing each other's gowns and gauds, children tumbled in play, dogs yammered.

Between their own rawness, and the blow that a stoup or three of beer can give to a hollow belly, the brothers more than carried out their aim of behaving like loons. They sprang around, somersaulted, cracked foolish jokes, stood on their heads, waved legs in air, and all in all made themselves out as silly and loud-mouthed. So folk merely looked down on them, or away from them.

Day drew to a close. At this season, it was hardly more than a glimmer between two gaping darknesses. Guests streamed indoors. Frodhi required that weapons be left in the foreroom. His excuse was that on Yule Eve men always drank heavily; quarrels might well flare, and if edged metal was to hand, a blood feud could much too easily start. The truth was, he did not really trust them. To be sure, he must lay the same command on his own warriors; anything else would have been a deadly insult. But those who were armed only with eating knives would hardly attack household troops who, outnumbered or not, were highly skilled fighters.

The foreroom thus grew crowded and agleam. Despite the longfires and many lesser flames, the chamber beyond seemed murky. Smokeholes were not drawing well and a blue haze thickened, stinging eyes and lungs.

When they had pushed deep into the crowd, the boys suddenly stiffened. They could make out a man who sat near the seat of guest-honor that S æ vil and Signy would share. Stout, gray, coarsely clad, he must have stayed within this whole while. "Regin!" Helgi cried in joy. "Old Fosterfather!"

He started toward the sheriff. Hroar grabbed his cloak. "Hold back, you staggerpate," the elder hissed. "Do you want to get us slain?"

Helgi yielded. Still, he could not keep from leaping and dancing down the length of the hall. Hroar must needs pace his sibling. He cast a glance through reek and dimness and elbowing, chattering folk, toward the high seat. There sat his uncle and his mother. The king was leaned forward, in earnest talk with a beggarly-looking crone who bore a crooked staff. He would not mark what anybody else did. Across from him was Signy. Her husband had not yet joined her. The longfires roared high, red, blue, yellow, casting sparks and a surf of heat Among huge hunchbacked shadows glittered the gold on Signy's arms, at her throat, in the coiled braids beneath her headdress. She was signing to her brothers.

Hroar urged Helgi thither. They stood before her, their faces beclouded by the cowls. Hers was drawn taut. She beckoned them close and whispered wildly, just to be heard by them amidst the din: "Don't stay here in the hall. Don't! Your strength is so little."

Helgi started to answer. Hroar thrust him onward. It would not do for others to see the strand-jarl's lady beseech two witlings. They sought the far end of the chamber and squatted down among the wanderers and dogs that waited for whatever the king would order given to them or the great men deign to throw their way.

The feast came forth. Good and plentiful were both food and drink: trenchers heaped to overflowing with juicy meat, flatbread and loaves stacked beside tubs of butter and cheese, servants scurrying ceaselessly to keep horns full of beer or mead. Yet there was no mirth. Talk buzzed dull and low. Few youths invited maidens to come sit and drink at their sides. A skald chanted forth old lays, and new ones in praise of King Frodhi, but his tones seemed lost in the smoke. Only the row of fires was loud, brawling and spitting above white-hot coals.

That downheartedness stemmed from the mood of the host. He sat withdrawn and curt-spoken, giving off chill like an iceberg. Sigridh his queen was wholly woeful; her fingers twisted and twisted together.

At last the tables were cleared away. The king rose and made the sign of the Hammer above a great silver cup which he then drained. Next should have come the turn of the earth-god Frey. In his honor, a boar made of gold should have been carried in, for those who wished to lay hands upon and make vows.

Instead Frodhi said, flat-voiced and tight-lipped while glooms went hunting around his head: "I want to make known that ill faith is among us tonight, yes, and a will to do murder. If we end it not at once, surely the gods will feel themselves aggrieved, and we may look in the coming year for famine or worse." He was silent for a bit; the eyes upon him glistened white; some guests could not help coughing, an ugly noise. "A witch wife has told me," Frodhi went on, "that she smells danger nigh, stem ming from my own blood.

"Well, you know how I've sought after the sons of my brother and my lady. I would heal the breach, I would bring back the peace which ought to dwell among kinsmen. Ever have they hidden from me, though. Why else save in hopes of uprising and murder? And who else might be hereabouts, wishing me harm, save those two?

"I will give rich rewards, and forgive whatever he may formerly have done or plotted against me, to whoever will tell me where Hroar and Helgi Halfdansson are."

Queen Sigridh fought not to weep. King Frodhi peered about. He could not see well in the gloom. Besides, the faces of men like S æ vil Jarl and Regin the sheriff were cold and shut.

"Stand forth, then, Heidh," ordered the king, "and tell me what you need to learn what you must"

The woman hobbled from her seat. Shadows blent with her rags while firelight reddened her unkempt gray locks. She leaned on her staff and spoke in low tones.

Among the stinking paupers, Helgi and Hroar squatted on the floor and gripped their knives. A hound smelled their sweat and growled.

Frodhi spoke to his frightened thralls. They fetched a witching seat. He often had to do with spellcasters and therefore kept such things on all his garths. It was a high beechwood stool whose three legs were of ash, elm, and thorn. Heidh put it before the king and herself like a raven upon it. She closed her eyes, moved her withered hands, and muttered.

No firepit lay between the royal seat and the place of honor opposite. Frodhi squinted across at Signy and S æ vil. The jarl sat quiet—the carven pillars seemed to have more movement in this uneasy light—but his wife breathed hard and her gaze roved. Heidh fell silent "Well, what have you seen?" Frodhi shrilled. "I know much has been opened to you. I see you have luck with you. Answer me, witchwife!"

She parted her jaws and gasped. A cracked croaking came from her mouth:

"Here are two

I do not trust—

they who sit

beside the fire."

The king trembled. A hand clasped his knife-hilt. "Do you mean the boys," he asked, "or those who've hidden them?"

Quoth she:

"They who stayed

there with Vifil

and who had

the names of hounds,

Hopp and Ho."

At this, Signy called, "Well spoken, wise-woman! You've done more than could have been awaited of you." Pulling off her arm-ring, she cast the heavy gold coil across the room, into the lap of Heidh.

The hag snatched it. "What's this about?" Frodhi rasped.

Heidh looked from him to Signy and back. "I'm sorry, lord," she said. "What was that nonsense I spoke? All my spells went astray, this whole day and eventide."

Racked by shuddering and gulping, Signy rose to go. Frodhi stood too, shook his fist at the witch and yelled, "If you won't speak forth freely, I'll torture you into it! For now I know no better than before what you think about those in this hall. And why is Signy out of her seat? I wonder if wolves are not in council with foxes here."

"I, I beg your leave," stammered his niece. "I've grown sick from the smoke."

Frodhi glared. S æ vil drew her back down beside him. "I'm sure another horn of mead will make her feel better," said the jarl smoothly. He beckoned to a girl, who hastened—teeth clattering—to pour for his wife. She drank deeply. He leaned close, arm about her waist as if to uphold her, and breathed in her ear: "Keep quiet. Hold your place. Much can happen yet to save the boys, if that be their lot. Whatever you do, show not what you think. As matters stand, we can't do a thing to help them."

Frodhi well-nigh screamed: "Tell the truth, witch, or I'll haul your limb-bones from their sockets and cast you in the fire!"

Heidh cowered from him. She did not let go of the ring, but she gaped widely and struggled with her spell, until she uttered:

"I see sitting

the sons of Halfdan,

Hroar and Helgi,

both of them hale.

Forth their revenge

on Frodhi comes—

"unless somebody hastens to stop it, but that'd doubtless be unwise," she added low. Jumping from the stool, she cackled:

"Hard are the eyes

in Ham and Hrani.

Grown from kidhood

are kingly children."

A stir and rustle went among those of S æ vil's men who recalled the names. "Ham and Hrani?" said Frodhi, "Who? Where?"

But the spaewife had, in her way, given the brothers warning. They had sidled backward through the poor guests to the wellhouse door. As uproar arose, they slipped out and filed toward the woods.

"Somebody ran from here!" yelled a beggar, and: "After them!" the king.

He and his warriors dashed toward that end of the hall. Regin surged from his seat Blundering along, as if eager to help but very drunk, he knocked a number of faggots from their brackets to the floor. They guttered out. His followers saw what he was about and did likewise. Darkness and tumult filled the space beyond the last fire-trench. There Regin's men got in the way of Frodhi's. By the time the mess had been straightened, no trace of the boys was to see. Outside lay nothing save frost

Frodhi gnawed his mustache as he led the way back in. Sigridh and Signy were sobbing in each other's arms. Heidh had scuttled out the front door with her golden ring. He paid scant heed to this. When the lights were kindled anew, he stood forth above all stony eyes and told the gathering in bitterness:

‘I’ ve lost them again. There seem to be no few here in dealings with them, and this I will punish when the time comes. Meanwhile, you may as well drink—you who are so glad they've gotten away."

"Lord," said Regin, and hiccoughed, "you misunderstand us. Surely tomorrow will be happier. Tonight, let's drink indeed ... as friends ... for who knows how long the Norn s will let him stay among those he holds dear?"

He kept shouting for brew to be fetched. Shaken by what had happened, the king's men and most others were glad to swill the stuff down as fast as their gullets would take it. Regin—and after Regin had whispered to him, S æ vil—passed secret word among their followers: "Pretend to get as drunk as the rest, but keep your wits. Mighty weirds are abroad, and we far from our homes."

Loudness and laughter soon lifted, harsh, not really happy, but at least staving off the stillness of the night. Booze flowed until the household troopers and many more fell asleep, one atop the next. By then Frodhi and Sigridh had gone to bed. Thus S æ vil and Regin drew no remark when they led their own bands out, to a barn which had been cleaned and spread with straw and skins for the overflow of guests, even though these quarters were not meant for them. In the hall resounded only hoglike snores and the sputter of the dying longfires.

VII

During those hours, a breeze scattered the overcast. Huddled and ashiver in a brake at the edge of the woods, Hroar and Helgi saw the heaven-signs blink forth—the Great Wain, the Little Wain in whose tongue is the Lodestar, Freyja's Spindle, more and more until the land lay grey and the hall bulked black beneath that icy light.

"Nothing have we done," said Hroar.

"No, much," Helgi told him, "for now men know that the Halfdanssons live—Hold! Yonder!"

A man came riding from the stables, across the open ground between dwelling and wilds. At first he was a blot and a clash of hoofs on rime. As he drew nigh, they knew him. "Regin!" Helgi cried. He bounded forth, Hroar close behind. "Oh, Fosterfather, we've missed you so!"

The sheriff gave no greeting. The shadowy shape of him and his steed turned about and moved back toward the hall. Stricken, the boys gaped after him. The cold gnawed deeper into their bones.

"What?" Hroar whispered. Starlight glistened on tears. "Is he disowning us? Is he off to tell Frodhi?"

"No, never will I believe that of him." Helgi's tone wavered.

Regin brought his beast around. A second time he neared them. He drew his sword and, when he was upon them, they saw how he scowled. He made as if to hew at them. Hroar choked but stood his ground. Helgi snapped numb fingers and breathed: "Hoy, I think I get what he means."

Regin sheathed blade, twitched reins, and again rode toward the hall. He went at a very slow walk. Helgi urged Hroar along, and they trailed. "I don't understand," said the latter weakly.

Said Helgi, and his voice clanged: "My fosterfather behaves like this because he will not break his oath to King Frodhi. So he won't speak to us; but nonetheless he wants to help us."

They closed in on the garth. A few dogs bayed. No man roused, nor did any stand watch. A shadow of looming trees swallowed Regin. The youths heard him speak aloud: "If I had great things to avenge on King Frodhi, I would burn this shaw." Thereupon he spurred his horse to a trot, rounded the main building and was gone from their sight.

The boys halted. "Burn the holy shaw?" wondered Hroar. 'What can that mean?"

Helgi seized his brother's arm. "Not the trees themselves. He wishes we'd set the hall afire—as near as may be to its door."

"How can we do that, two mere lads, with such might against us?"

"There's no help for it," Helgi snarled. "Sometime we must dare it, if ever we're to get revenge for the harm done us."

Hroar stood a while until, slowly: "Yes. Right. Here we have men gathered who'll know we're the doers. If we make the first move, some of them will rally to us, for our father's sake and in hopes we'll deal better with them than Frodhi has. A chance like this may never come again."

"Let's go, then!" Helgi laughed aloud. Eager or no, they moved thereafter with every trick of silence and concealment they had learned in hunting.

And surely their hearts hammered thickly when they entered the hall itself.

Stacked weapons gleamed in the foreroom . The chamber beyond was a blindness full of bitter smoke, heat, man-stench, noises of drunken slumber. Fire-trenches glowed dull red, but the pillar-gods upbearing the rafters were lost to sight.

With unsteady fingers, the athelings took war-gear. Outside once more, they helped each other don padded undercoat and coif, noseguarded helmet, byrni e of ring-mail whose weight they felt only briefly, sword at waist and shield laid handy. What they chose did not fit them too ill, since Hroar was fifteen and Helgi, thirteen, big for his age.

"Man's arms!" Helgi grew dizzy from gladness. "After three years like thralls—warriors!"

"Hush," warned Hroar, though hope drove the winter out of him too.

Most quietly, they flitted everything from the foreroom and laid it on the ground. Then they slipped into the main room. On hands and knees they went, fumbling a way among sprawled bodies. When someone stirred or mumbled, they froze. Yet a tide of sureness carried them. No boy really believes he can die.

Groping along a trench, they found sticks not quite eaten away and plucked them forth. The light from these made them more sure of not kicking anybody awake. Helgi bore an extra one in his teeth.

Under the stars, they straightened. They whipped the brands to flapping life. They reached high and put torch to low-sweeping eaves.

At first these would not catch. Helgi muttered a stream of oaths. Hroar worked patiently, trying first this spot and then that.

A flame stirred. It was tiny, pale blue, a bird of Surt newly hatched and frail. It trembled in the cold breeze, cowered down between two shakes, peeped a weak little song as if to keep up its own heart. But all the while it fed; and it grew; now strength flowed into it out of the wind; it stood forth boldly, flaunted bright feathers, looked around and crackled a greeting to the sisters it saw.

The timber of the hall was old and weathered. Moss that chinked the cracks had gone dead-leaf dry. Pitch in the roof drank fire as once in its pine trees it drank a summer sun.

Helgi took stance near the foredoor. "If they waken in there before this way is blocked," he said, "we'll have to keep them from boiling out." He scowled. "The well-house! Best you go kindle that end right off."

"What of our mother?" Hroar fretted. In his thrill he had hitherto forgotten Queen Sigridh.

"Oh, warriors always let women and children and thralls and such go free," said Helgi. "But—" He broke off and spun around. From the courtyard stole a band of armed men.

At their head was S æ vil. He turned to them and said: "Stoke up the fire and help these lads. You have no duty toward King Frodhi."

They hastened to obey. Many already bore torches, the rest ranked themselves by the athelings. Helgi cheered. Hroar stuttered, "L-l-lord Jarl—"

S æ vil stroked his beard. "I think erelong you will be my lord ... Hrani," he murmured.

“ There's a n escape through the wellhouse—“

"Regin is taking care of that."

The sheriff joined them. Firelight waxed till it skipped across metal and lured stern faces out of shadow. As yet, however, the burning was not far along. Neither noise nor heat aroused King Frodhi.

He stirred in his shut-bed. One like that is built short, for its users sleep sitting up. The mattress rustled beneath him. "Ugh, ugh!" he choked. "It's close and black in here as a grave." He slid back the panel. A bloody glow crept over him from the trenches.

Beside him, Sigridh asked, "What's the matter?"

He sighed heavily before he cried: "Awake! Waken, my men! I've had a dream and it bodes no good."

Much though they drank, his warriors had remembered to lie near him. The call brought them fast out of their rest. "What was it, lord?" asked a man. In murk and reek, he seemed to bear the shape of a troll.

Frodhi snapped after air. "I'll tell you how it went. I dreamed I heard a shouting at us: 'Now are you come home, King, you and your men.' I heard an answer, and grim was the tone: 'What home is that?' Then the shout came so near me that I felt the breath of the one who shouted: 'Home to Hel, home to Hell' And I awoke."

"O-o-oh," crooned Sigridh.

The dogs indoors had not thus far marked, in their sleep, anything that seemed worth barking at. Now they also stirred, caught the first whiff of death, and set up a hubbub.

Those outside heard. It was needful to lull fears until the trap was sprung tight. Frodhi had two smiths who were both good handworkers and both called Var, which means Wary. Regin boomed:

"Outside it is Regin"—which could mean "raining"—

"and also the king's sons,

fiercest of foemen;

say it to Frodhi.

Wary wrought nails,

Wary set the heads on,

and for Wary did Wary

forge wary nails."

A guardsman grumbled, "What's this to make a verse about? That it's raining, or the king's smiths are at work, whatever they make—"

Frodhi answered starkly: "Don't you see these are tidings? We'll find a different meaning, be sure of that. Regin swore an oath to me, and so he warns me of danger. But sly and and underhanded is that fellow."

Most who thought about it afterward felt that Regin kept his word by thus saying that Hroar—a wary one— was wreaking a crookedness which Helgi—another wary one—put to work, while Regin—a third wary one—gave warning of this to a fourth wary one who was Frodhi himself. The sheriff had never promised not to give news in riddles too twisted for easy reading.

Finding no rest, Frodhi rose a short time later. He threw a cloak over his nakedness and sought the fore-room. There he saw how the roof was ablaze, the weapons were gone, and armed men waited beyond. After an eyeblink he spoke steadily: "Who rules over this fire?"

Helgi and Hroar stepped from the line. In their young faces was no ruth. "We do," said Hroar, "the sons of your brother Halfdan whom you slew."

"What terms of peace do you want?" asked Frodhi. "It's an unseemly doing among us kinsmen, that one should seek the life of the other."

Helgi spat. "None can have faith in you," he said. "Would you be less ready to betray us than you were our father? This night you pay."

An ember fell upon Frodhi and scorched his hair. He walked back into the hall and shouted for everyone to make ready for battle.

The guardsmen had neither mail nor shields nor any arm better than a knife. They fueled the longfires within for light and broke up furnishings for clubs and rams. Some of the guests helped them. The rest were too befuddled, and only stumbled about gibbering and getting in the way.

In a rush together, as nearly as the narrow doorways allowed, the king's men attacked. Most fell, speared or sliced or hewn down as they came. A handful, holding a bench between them, smashed through their foes and gained a clear space. S æ vil's folk surrounded these. One was a berserker, a shaggy giant upon whom the madness had fallen. He howled, foamed, gnawed his club which was a high seat pillar, and dashed forth heedless of cuts and thrusts into his bare flesh. His weapon crashed on a helmet. It rang and crumpled; the man beneath dropped dead.

Helgi broke from the line still guarding the door, and sped against the berserker. "No —.'" yelled S æ vil and Regin together, aghast. The atheling heard them not. He took stance, feet apart, legs bent and tautened, shield decking his body from just below the eyes, sword slanted back past his shoulder. After three years of planks and sticks, it was as if these well-made things were alive. The club raged downward. He eased his right knee and thus swiftly moved that way. The blow smote merely the rim of his shield. That was enough to stagger him, and leave his left wrist sore for days afterward. But his blade was already moving. Across the top of the shield it whistled. Deeply it bit, into the berserker's neck. Blood spurted. He toppled. For a small time he flopped, stru ggling to rise. Then he went empty and lay there in a widening pool.

S æ vil hugged Helgi. "Your first man, your first man!" Regin hastened to the back of the hall.

Frodhi had not been in that doomed charge. He took his wife by the arm. "Come," he said. "Maybe a way is still open." They ran to the wellhouse. At its outer doorway stood Regin's men and the sheriff himself.

"We Skjoldungs are not a long-lived breed," said Frodhi, and returned.

The last king's man died. The flames stood ever taller and ate their way ever further back along the roof. Walls caught. Heat hammered. The house thundered and flared. Helgi bawled in his uneven boy-voice: "Let women and servants, men who are friends to the sons of Halfdan, come forth. Quick, before too late!"

They were not many. Most hirelings, thralls, and beggars had slept elsewhere and were gathered terrified at the uneasy edge of firelight. A few crept out, and rather more yeoman guests, those who had not unforgiveably worked on Frodhi's behalf. They babbled of how they had hoped for this wonderful day.

"But where is my mother?" Hroar called.

Sigridh came to the door. Pillars of flame stood on either side and above. "Hurry!" shouted Helgi. She stopped, cloak drawn tightly around the gown she had donned, and looked upon her sons.

At last she said—they could barely hear her through the roaring—"Well have you wrought, Hroar and Helgi, and everything good do I wish for you in all of your life to come. But myself, I forsook one husband after he was dead. Ill would they speak of your mother, my darlings, did she forsake another husband while yet he lived." She raised a hand. "Upon you, my blessing." She walked back into the hall.

The brothers shrieked and tried to follow. Men held them fast. The doorway crashed asunder. The roof began to fall in. Sparks drowned every star. The noise grew even greater. It smothered the weeping of Hroar and Helgi.

III

THE TALE OF THE BROTHERS

I

Jarl and sheriff took the athelings to Leidhra. There they called a Thing, and when men were gathered, they told what had happened. Standing on the high stone, the youths saw blades flash free, gleam aloft and bang upon shields, while the throng shouted to hail them its kings.

They in their turn promised to abide by olden law, give justice, and restore the lands which Frodhi's gang had grabbed. They thanked their sister's husband S æ vil for good help, and likewise Regin their fosterfather, and the men of these; and they handed out gifts to many, taken from the great hall and storehouses which now were theirs.

Thence they traveled about Denmark with their two elders and a well-armed troop. In each shire they got themselves taken as lords.

On the way, Hroar asked Helgi if he wished to split the rule between them, one in Zealand and one in Scania. Regin tugged his beard and said, "I'm not sure that would be wise, remembering what happened before."

Helgi flushed. "Never will I bear a spear against my brother!" he said. "Well dwell together and share all things."

This would be at Leidhra. Since Scania needed a trusty man in charge, they bade S æ vil be theirs. He agreed, moved thither with Signy and their children, and lived long in peace. Often he and his brothers-in-law guested each other; but on the whole, he is now out of the saga.

The new kings were very unlike. Hroar remained small, albeit quick and deft. He was soft-spoken, not given to more show than he must put on, mild, friendly, and deep-minded. Helgi, though, grew uncommonly tall and strong, until he was reckoned to be about the mightiest warrior in the land. He was gustily merry when not crossed, openhanded, one whose house folk made excuses to seek because they knew how the food and drink and mirth would flow. He either dressed as roughly as the meanest smallholder, or in the costliest furs and stuffs, a dragon's hoard of gold on his arms and about his neck. Against this can be set that he was headlong, short-tempered, unsparing of whoever thwarted his will, and too early restless when seated in council.

Some men felt Hroar was like the father Halfdan and Helgi like the uncle Frodhi, and dreaded a breach. But it never came. The love between the brothers stayed unshakeable while they both lived.

The first year they must keep moving, learning the ins and outs of their realm, binding its headmen to them. Thereafter was no reason to look for trouble from that quarter. Hroar settled down quietly to master the skills of kingship. Helgi trained himself in fighting and in the ways of the sea.

This was to a good end. As soon as weather allowed next year, he led warriors forth. Bands of robbers and nests of vikings had always harassed the land, and gotten worse under Frodhi. Helgi scoured woods and waters, going in with fire and sword, ax and noose; yeomen blessed his name. At first he fared under the guidance of experienced leaders. By fall they admitted that he had no further call on them.

He spent the winter in a cheery round of feasts, also in planning the summer's faring. That was a cruise along as much of Jutland, Fyn, and other islands as he could make, trading, fighting, and scouting out these lands against a later day.

While Helgi was gone that year, Regin, now a jarl, came to Hroar. They went aside and spoke under four eyes, as the saying is. "I am unwell," the king's foster-father told him. "Ever oftener my heart pains me and flutters like a bird trying to escape a cage. It would gladden me if, before I go hence, I can lay one more strong timber to the house of the Skjoldungs."

Hroar gripped his hand. Nothing else was needful between those two.

He went on: "I've asked about, and sent men of mine to look. I think I've found you a wife, who'd not only bring a rich dower and stout friends. She'd be the right lady for you."

"I've always done well to follow your redes," said Hroar low.

She was Valthjona, daughter of Æ gthjof, the chief jarl in G ö taland and near kin to its king. Thus Hroar would gain spokesmen for himself in that realm between his own and the Yngling-led Swedes.

There went more talk, with faring of messengers and gifts. Ere Yule, Valthjona reached Leidhra. She was a big, good-looking woman, firm at need but otherwise kindly, shrewd and steadfast She and Hroar dwelt together in happiness.

Soon after the Hammer had hallowed them, Regin died. Folk called that great scathe. The kings gave him burial in a ship laden with costl y goods, and raised a howe which reared high above the Isefjord, as if trying to see where old Vifil had laid his bones. Aasta did not long outlive her man. She too got a mound and farewell gifts from her fosterlings.

Hroar said sadly, "Now we must lean on our own wisdom, such as it is."

"If that fails," answered his brother, "we have our strength."

"Our great-grandfather owned more might than we do, yet he went under." Hroar ran fingers through his thin new beard. They sat alone in a loftroom, with only a stone lamp to hold off night. The air was winter-bleak. "We're safer eastward than erstwhile, thanks to Regin. But few are our kinfolk westward across the Great Belt"

"Are you saying I should seek a wife of my own?"

"Well, we'd better begin thinking about it"

"H'm. I'm young for that" "Not as we Skjoldungs go."

From time to time in the following months, Hroar brought the matter up. Helgi put him off, usually with a jest. This was not because of shyness. Almost the first thing Helgi did when they came to Leidhra, after the slaying of Frodhi, was beckon a thrall girl to his bed. Since then, if he wasn't at sea, he seldom slept alone.

"You're breeding sons who may well bring down the kingdom in grasping after it," Hroar scolded him.

"Oh, I've not had to take one on my knee and give him a name," Helgi laughed. "I never keep a wench long enough. I send her back to work, or home with a gift if she's free-born, and that's that"

"Still, you should have acknowledged children, not to speak of in-laws."

"Let me be, will you?" And Helgi stalked from the house.

He brooded, however, until in the end he decided to astonish the world by showing how he could steer his own affairs—and, at the same time, do a thing which would make him famous far beyond Denmark. Therefore he sent spies out in secret. Openly, he gathered ships and men, promising a cruise come summer which ought to win wealth.

There was no dearth of younger sons glad to join him. After sowing season a big fleet rowed out of Haven.

Hroar had spoken against this—"We've plenty of vikings and foemen close to home, without turning vikings ourselves"—but Helgi said, "Men won't stay willing to go beneath our banners unless we give them a chance at real booty," and would not be swayed.

His ships went down the Sound, their avowed aim to harry the southern Baltic coasts. Then at Mon, camped ashore, he told his skippers that first they would turn west. After he broached his wish, a few said it was too reckless. But they were shouted down and soon gave in. Remember, these were young men. Helgi himself had but sixteen winters.

II

The Saxons began in the neck of the Jutland peninsula. Like all Northland folk other than Finns, they speak a tongue the rest can understand. As their numbers waxed, they spilled forth until they had overrun realms from the Elbe to the Rhine—and Britain as well, along with their Anglic and Jutish kinsmen. A few clung to the old country.

One such kingdom was on the island of Al s between Flensborg and Aabenraa Fjords. Its masters stemmed from both Odin and Frey, though they also had blood in them of the Wendish tribes who dwell eastward beyond Ironwood and talk like neither Danes nor Finns. Though doughty, they lacked great numbers of men and must plight faith and pay scot to the kings of Slesvik on the mainland.

The l ast of these royal underlings hi ght Sigmund. He married a daughter of his overlord Hunding. She bore him a girl-child they named Olof, but no sons who lived past her own early death. This led Sigmund to raise the girl rather like a boy, take her on hunts, teach her weapon-play, tell her of warlike doings, let her listen while he talked with men. She grew harsh and haughty, scorned womanly skills, sometimes even went about carrying shield and byrnie, sword at belt and helm on head.

Her father reached no high age either. When he died, her grandfather King Hunding of Slesvik feared a struggle for the seat which might lead to a breakaway from him. Therefore he pressed the Alsmen to take Olof for their queen. This was not wholly unheard of among Saxons; besides, the wiser chieftains agreed it was better than uproar. So it was done.

Later Hunding died and his realm fell into disorder. Cunningly playing sides off against each other, Queen Olof became able to do what she wanted. Taking a man was not among those things. She was reckoned the best match in the North—if only because this island was well - placed for war and trade—but every suitor she sent away, and not very politely either.

Her own folk did not like her much, finding her overbearing and niggardly. Still, she was not bad enough to rise up against, bearing in mind that she was the last of their royal house and hence surely under the ward of her forebears the gods.

Matters had stood thus for several years when Helgi's craft turned prows toward her kingdom.

He had learned that she spent her summers on the eastern shore of the island. There she kept a dwelling, less a hall than a lodge and some outbuildings, the Little Belt before it and miles of greenwood behind. It was a stead where she could hunt, which she loved, and seldom have to give outsiders food or gifts, which she cared Utile to do.

The house stood on a bluff looking widely over strand and water. Thus she reckoned on warning of ships in time to send after help or, at worst, flee down the road inland. Helgi lay to behind Lee Island across the Belt and waited for a fog. At that time of year he soon got it. The fleet crossed in single file, men stealthily rowing. Oft-times in that thick, dripping grayness, a steersman in the stern of one craft could not see the lookout in the bows of her follower. Ropes linked them. In the lead went the king. For pilot he had a fisherman who knew well every tide, current, skerry, and bight of these straits. They made landfall almost at their goal. Helgi sent warriors ashore and then cast anchor below the bluff

The fog lifted quite suddenly toward evening—and there were those lean hulls, ablink with mail and spears, while armored men loafed g rinning around the edge of the woods. They made no threat; and the mast of the foremost ship had been raised to bear at its top the white shield which betokens peace. Yet the queen was boxed in and outnumbered beyond hope.

In stiff-faced calm she received the messengers. "Helgi Halfdansson, Dane-King, greets Olof Sigmundsdottir, Als-Queen, and will accept hospitality" was their word. She could only choose that which was safest, and bid him and his be her guests.

They clattered up the strand-path and into the yard, youths boisterous as a sea-wind, toplofty as eagles. Olof waited in her high seat. Sunset light turned golden the mane and downy beard of him who entered and hailed her. They stared hard across the shadows between them,

Helgi was taller than most of his tall following, wide-shouldered, deep-chested, narrow-hipped, craggy of nose, long of head and chin. Fire-blue eyes danced in a leather-brown face. He was roughly clad, and wetness still dripped off his kirtle and cloak; but golden rings wound their way up his thick forearms, and gold-inlaid was the haft of his sword.

Olof was rather short, though her form showed goodly within her gown and hunting had given her uncommon grace of movement. Her head was round, wide in the cheekbones, nostrils, and mouth; her eyes were big, the same deep brown as her coiled hair; all in all, she was well-favored, and not too many years older than Helgi. The look she gave him smoldered. She bade him welcome in a flat voice.

"I have heard so much of you," laughed he, "I could not but pay this call." Without waiting to be asked, he joined her in the high seat and told a servant to bring them drink.

"Do everything well," said Olof to her folk. "Let our guests lack naught."

To cook for such a big and unawaited company took time. Meanwhile beer and mead ran freely. The Danes jammed the lodge, clamored, grabbed at women, swaggered, boasted, and swilled. Helgi and Olof, side by side in the high seat, must nearly shout to hear each other. She let him do most of the talking—about himself—and he was nothing loth, the more so as he got drunker. She showed no outward unhappiness.

When at last they were eating, he said to her, "You must have guessed I came here for more than a feast. It's thus: I wish us to drink our bridal ale this evening."

She tautened. "You fare too swiftly, my lord."

"No, no." Helgi wagged a beef bone. "We've enough folk gathered here for a wedding. Great will be my honor and gain if I win as high-souled and, nm, useful a queen as you for my own. Later we can hallow it, and speak of dowries and morning gifts and whatnot else. But we'll he in one bed this night, you and me."

"If I must be wed," she answered, knuckles white over the handle of her knife, "then I know of no man who stands above you. I trust you'll not let me get shame out of this."

Helgi leered. "Indeed it's fitting that you, uppish as you behave—that we should live together long's I like."

"I could wish more of my friends were here," said Olof. "But your will be done. I'm sure you'll act in seemly wise toward me."

"Aye, aye, aye!" said Helgi slurrily. He hauled her to him, crushed her mouth against his and pawed across her in sight of everyone. Then he stood and bellowed forth the tidings.

The Danes roared their glee. The Saxons knew not what to do, save for those wenches who giggled in dark corners beside sailors. Queen Olof arose, as if her gown were not soiled and hair tumbled, and called: "Let this bridal be drunk in the best we have. Break out the wine!"

Southland traders bore some to these parts. It was little known elsewhere in the North. Helgi whooped at the taste. Olof smiled—in the flickering shadow-haunted light, it passed for a real smile—and plied him until far into the night.

None marked how she only pretended to match his huge draughts, save her trustiest men to whom she whispered to do likewise.

At last Helgi belched that they'd better put her to bed, else her wedding night would become a forenoon. Shouting, howling, bawling their bawdiest songs and jests, those Danes who could still walk took torches and escorted her across the courtyard to a bower where she slept. This is the Northland custom, that a bride be thus led in ahead of her groom. It is supposed to ward off evil beings, and the earthy words are to bring love and children. But for Olof waited no flowers and green boughs; nor had she been spoken for long beforehand, or had old friends around for this day out of her life, or been hallowed, or laid her maiden's garland down as an offering to Freyja.

The troop went back after Helgi. "In a while, in a while," he grunted. "You scuts won't finish this wine without me." The night was grizzled when he staggered away. Few were left hardy enough to come along.

These closed the door behind him, shouted their last randy good wishes, and lurched off to join the rest in slumber.

One dim lamp lit the room. "Whoof!" cried Helgi, and fumbled at the queen. "Take off your clothes."

"Lie down," she murmured, guiding him, "and I will come to you."

He did. She slipped from sight, as if to make ready. Erelong she heard his snores.

Doubtless she stood a while, then, looking down upon him, turning a knife over and over in her fingers. No matter how drunk, though, his crews were too much for her few guards and carls. Furthermore, his killing would bring on a blood-feud with the mighty Skjoldungs. She had already decided what to do.

Some say she pricked a sleep-thorn into Helgi to keep him from waking. Others say that was not needful.

She slipped forth into chill dimness, under paling stars, and bespoke her men. They dared not bring out a horse; but among them was a fast runner. He started at once down the woodland roadway. Olof fetched what she wanted, and brought back a couple of men for help.

"Is this wise?" she heard asked.

Her head lifted. "I have my honor to think of," she said. "With shame shall shame be avenged."

They hogtied the king; they took scissors and razor, and cut all the hair off him; they smeared him everywhere with pitch; they stuffed him and a lot of rags into a leather sack, and tied it shut; and the men bore him down to the strand.

At dawn, on her orders, Olof ’ s carls roused the Danes —freely using bucketsful of cold water—and told them

Helgi had gone to the ships and wanted to sail off, since there was now an ebb tide and a fair wind.

They sprang up as fast as they could but, numb from drink, hardly knew what they were about. When they reached the shore, they saw their king nowhere. He would soon come, they thought muzzily. Meanwhile, here lay a fat leather sack. They got a wish to find out what it held.

When they undid the ties, there he lay, and in sorry shape. The sleep-thorn fell out of him, if it was ever in, and he awakened, not from any happy dream. He raved with rage.

Now they heard horns bray, feet and hoofs tramp, iron clang, voices call. Athwart the morning sky on the bluff-top stood a host of warriors against whom it was hopeless to go, especially in their wretchedness of headache and bowking. They crawled aboard ship and rowed off. They rowed very badly. The Saxon taunts followed them a long ways; and afterward the seagulls jeered .

III

Huge was the wonder, and wide flew the tale, that Queen Olof should have been able to mock a king like Helgi Halfdansson. The Alsmen looked awed upon her. That made her overbearingness and stubbornness wax beyond measure. Just the same, from then on she always kept a strong guard wherever she went.

As for him, he was in such a mood that none dared speak of the matter in his hearing, nor even let eyes linger on him. He took the fleet to Wendland as promised, where he went forward in a recklessness, slaughter, and burning that shook the toughest of the crew. They carried every battle, and in fall turned home laden with spoils and thralls. Helgi showed no gladness. Landing at Haven, he snapped a few orders as to unloading and care of the ships, took a horse, and galloped off alone.

The tale had reached Leidhra. When Helgi arrived, Hroar sought him in his house. They climbed into a loft-room to speak away from other ears. "I would have readied a welcoming feast for you," said the older brother mildly- "However, I thought this year you'd rather I didn't."

"I would not have come to it, forsooth," Helgi mumbled, glaring at the floor.

"You will outlive this thing," Hroar said.

Helgi flared: "It's a shame on us!"

"And who brought it?" Hroar answered, suddenly sharp-tongued. "Who deserved it?"

Helgi lifted a fist as if to strike him, then snarled and flung down the ladder and out of the h ouse.

Through that winter he kept to himself as much as might be, was harsh toward underlings, curt and niggardly toward those of higher rank. Men whispered their fear that the blood of the dark-souled Skjoldungs was rising in him. After he began holding secret talks with those fighters who had ever been closest to him, many thought he must be plotting to do what Frodhi did.

But when gloom waned before daylight, snow melted in rushing streams, the storks and the swallows came home, Helgi grew calmer. His household knew he was busy readying something, though what it was, he told nobody save chosen men. One morning early in summer they were gone, and the king, and the speediest of his ships.

Mast raised, raven sail unfurled, she flew before a following wind. It skirled, cold and salt, kissed cheeks and tousled hair. Waves rumbled and gurgled, spindrift scudded above their wrinkled gray crests and blue-black troughs, sunbeams aslant through clouds struck green fire off them. The hull bounded, st rakes sang, walrus-hide tackle th rummed, Helgi took the steering oar. While the land which was his rolled by him to starboard, he smiled, for the first time in almost a year.

When M ö n lay aft, he had the dragon head of war set onto the prow.

Yet they fared carefully, that crew, sheering off from whatever other vessels they saw, camping nowhere. At the Little Belt they hove-to until dark, then rowed on north by moonlight

Ere dawn they reached the cove which their pilot had chosen for them. It lay several miles south of Olof’ s lodge. Trees crowded a small beach. Helgi ordered the ship grounded. Her boat he put on watch at the mouth, lest a foe take them unawares and block their flight. Thereafter he slept a few hours. Those who stood guard ashore heard him chuckle in his dreams.

At sunrise he bolted some food and busked himself. He went clad in beggarly rags. Slung across his shoulders were a sword and two chests full of gold and silver.

The going is hard through a wildwood. Trees soar, oak, beech, elm, larch; their crowns rustle green-gold in sunlight that speckles the shadowiness beneath; birds sing in their thousands, squirrels streak up the boles like red fire; the air is warm and full of the smells of growth. But underbrush makes a wall, snagging feet, blocking breast, stabbing at eyes, scornfully crackling. It is not strange how often settlements are only reachable by sea.

Helgi was a huntsman. He found game trails and glided along them as readily as a deer. Soon he drew nigh his goal. In a hollow trunk he left his sword, under a bush he half hid his chests, and went onward. At the roadway, out of sight of the lodge, he waited.

A thrall of the queen's came by. He carried a basketful of eggs, bought for the household from a farmstead. At sight of the big man he drew back. Helgi smiled, spread empty hands, and said, "Have no fears. I'm homeless but harmless."

The thrall was not surprised. Gangrels were common, in these days when Slesvik suffered upheaval. As for reaching this island from there, that is the narrowest of channels. "How go things hereabouts?" the stranger asked him.

"Naught save peace," said the thrall, easing a bit "Whence do you hail?"

"No matter. I'm just a poor stave-carl. See here, though. I've stumbled on a hoard in these woods. Shall I show it to you?"

The thrall saw no reason why the wanderer should attack him. Besides, he bore a stout staff. He came along, and drew a shaken breath when he saw the glitter beneath leaves. "Great things indeed!" he said. "Who might have left that here? King Helgi, maybe, for some reason, before he sought our queen last year and she made a laughingstock of him?"

"I know not," said the gangrel roughly. "Tell me, is she greedy for gold?"

"In that wise, there's none like her."

"I'd heard the same. Well, then, she'll like this, and she's bound to claim it, here being her land. Now I don't want to turn my good luck into bad and try hiding a treasure. How could one like me grow rich overnight, and not be supposed a robber and strung up for crowbait? No, let her take it, and give me what part she sees fit; that's best. D'you think she'll trouble herself to come after the hoard?"

"That I do, if she can go unbeknownst save for a close-mouthed warrior or two."

"I was about to say that's how she'd better fare," nodded the wanderer. "If her find got noised abroad, the headmen of the kingdom would await feasts and gifts; and they tell me as how she's a chary one. But look here, I don't want anybody else about. Only you and her. You can see I'm nothing to be afraid of." He stooped and reached. "Here's a jewel and a ring I'll bury offside and give you afterward, can you get her to come alone. Should she grow angry at you, I'll take care of that."

At first the thrall refused. Smooth swift-flowing talk turned his mind. He guessed the stranger knew of more gold elsewhere, and wanted to bargain about it under four eyes. So glib a tongue could surely turn the queen's wrath. And later he, the thrall, could give her those two costly things in payment for his freedom and a bit of a farm.

Thus he left the stave-carl on guard and himself hastened to the lodge, his heart thumping. He needed a while to get Olof aside, where he panted to her how he had found a mighty hoard, and asked her to follow him and lay hands on it, telling no one else lest envy of him make them spiteful.

Her rust-brown eyes weighed him. A flush crept over her broad-boned face. "If you're telling the truth ," she answered, "this news will bring you luck. Otherwise it'll cost you your head. However, I've always found you faithful. I'll trust what you say."

She set a meeting after dark. At that time she arose, dressed, and sneaked from her bower. The watch was against a band or a fleet of foes. A single person, used to stalking game, went easily past. Beneath a moon-silvered oak stood the thrall. He guided her into the murk beyond.

The chests lay close to a small glade. Moonlight drifted between leaves and boughs to pick out the glint of metal —on a drawn sword in the hand of the man who stepped from night.

"Greeting, Queen Olof," laughed his hidden lips. "Do you remember Helgi Halfdansson?"

She shrieked, whirled, and started to run. In a long stride, he caught her. The thrall whimpered and struck at him with his staff. Helgi's blade knocked it aside. "I could slay you, fellow," said the king, as steadily as if the woman were not yelling, writhing, clawing, and kicking in his grasp. "But since we'll be gone before you can fetch help, my rede is that you flee elsewhere." The thrall gibbered. Helgi pointed downward with his sword. "There lies that which I promised you." The thrall was not too stunned to pick it up. Helgi poked swordpoint at him. "Go!" The thrall crashed off through the brush.

Helgi sheathed his blade. "Be still," he told Olof, and gave her a cuff that rattled her teeth. "Did you think I'd leave your treachery unavenged?"

She fell to hands and knees, sobbed a short while, rose and stammered, "Yes, right, I've borne myself ill toward you. In payment, I'll . . . now . . . become your lawful wife."

"No," said he, "you won't get by so easily this time. You're coming along to my ship, and there you'll stay as long as I want. For the sake of my honor I can't do aught but treat you as grossly and shamefully as you did me."

"Tonight must your will be done," she whispered.