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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Viking Tales, by Jennie Hall
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Viking Tales
+
+Author: Jennie Hall
+
+Illustrator: Victor R. Lambdin
+
+Release Date: March 12, 2008 [EBook #24811]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIKING TALES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bryan Ness, Stephen Blundell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+VIKING TALES
+
+
+[Decoration]
+
+
+[Illustration: _A map showing the journeys of the Vikings_]
+
+
+
+
+          VIKING TALES
+              _by_
+          JENNIE HALL
+ _The Francis W. Parker School_
+          _Chicago_
+
+
+         [Illustration]
+
+
+          ILLUSTRATED
+              _by_
+           VICTOR R.
+            LAMBDIN
+
+
+       RAND McNALLY & CO
+
+      _Chicago_ _New York_
+            _London_
+
+
+
+
+ _Copyright, 1902,_
+   By JENNIE HALL
+
+      [Device]
+   Made in U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+    Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.
+    Diacritical marks, found in the _Pronouncing Index_, are represented
+    as follows:
+
+      [=x] any character with upper macron
+      [)x] ... with upper breve
+      [.x] ... with upper dot
+      [x:] ... with lower diaeresis
+      [~x] ... with upper tilde
+      [+x] ... with upper up tack
+
+
+
+
+_The_ Table _of_ Contents
+
+
+                                     PAGE
+ _A List of the Illustrations_          8
+ _What the Sagas Were_                  9
+
+
+PART I.
+
+_IN NORWAY_
+
+ The Baby                              15
+ The Tooth Thrall                      19
+ Olaf's Farm                           27
+ Olaf's Fight with Havard              40
+ Foes'-fear                            47
+ Harald is King                        53
+ Harald's Battle                       62
+ Gyda's Saucy Message                  71
+ The Sea Fight                         81
+ King Harald's Wedding                 89
+ King Harald Goes West-Over-Seas       95
+
+
+PART II.
+
+_WEST-OVER-SEAS_
+
+ Homes in Iceland                     103
+ Eric the Red                         143
+ Leif and His New Land                161
+ Wineland the Good                    174
+
+ _Descriptive Notes_                  194
+ _Suggestions to Teachers_            200
+ _A Reading List_                     204
+ _A Pronouncing Index_                207
+
+
+
+
+A List of the Illustrations
+
+
+                                                                    PAGE
+
+ _A map showing the journeys of the Vikings_                Frontispiece
+
+ "_I own this baby for my son. He shall be called Harald_"            17
+
+ "_He threw back his cape and drew a little dagger from his
+     belt_"                                                           22
+
+ "_I struck my shield against the door so that it made a
+     great clanging_"                                                 31
+
+ "_Then he turned to the shore and sang out loudly_"                  45
+
+ "_He drove it into the wolf's neck_"                                 51
+
+ "_I vow that I will grind my father's foes under my heel_"           59
+
+ "_King Haki fell dead under 'Foes'-fear'_"                           68
+
+ "_I will not be his wife unless he puts all of Norway
+     under him for my sake_"                                          73
+
+ "_Then he leaped into King Arnvid's boat_"                           87
+
+ "_I, Harald, King of Norway, take you, Gyda, for my wife_"           91
+
+ "_In Norway they left burning houses and weeping women_"             97
+
+ "_Then he saw that Leif's ship was being driven afar off_"          125
+
+ "_Those Icelanders clapped them on the shoulders_"                  137
+
+ "_He looked straight ahead of him and scowled_"                     145
+
+ "_More than half the men in the hall jumped to their feet_"         147
+
+ "_It is a bigger boat than I ever saw before_"                      153
+
+ "_He pointed to the woods and laughed and rolled his eyes_"         167
+
+ "_The chief held them out to Thorfinn and hugged the cloak
+     to him_"                                                        187
+
+
+
+
+What _the_ Sagas Were
+
+
+Iceland is a little country far north in the cold sea. Men found it and
+went there to live more than a thousand years ago. During the warm
+season they used to fish and make fish-oil and hunt sea-birds and gather
+feathers and tend their sheep and make hay. But the winters were long
+and dark and cold. Men and women and children stayed in the house and
+carded and spun and wove and knit. A whole family sat for hours around
+the fire in the middle of the room. That fire gave the only light.
+Shadows flitted in the dark corners. Smoke curled along the high beams
+in the ceiling. The children sat on the dirt floor close by the fire.
+The grown people were on a long narrow bench that they had pulled up to
+the light and warmth. Everybody's hands were busy with wool. The work
+left their minds free to think and their lips to talk. What was there to
+talk about? The summer's fishing, the killing of a fox, a voyage to
+Norway. But the people grew tired of this little gossip. Fathers looked
+at their children and thought:
+
+"They are not learning much. What will make them brave and wise? What
+will teach them to love their country and old Norway? Will not the
+stories of battles, of brave deeds, of mighty men, do this?"
+
+So, as the family worked in the red fire-light, the father told of the
+kings of Norway, of long voyages to strange lands, of good fights. And
+in farmhouses all through Iceland these old tales were told over and
+over until everybody knew them and loved them. Some men could sing and
+play the harp. This made the stories all the more interesting. People
+called such men "skalds," and they called their songs "sagas."
+
+Every midsummer there was a great meeting. Men from all over Iceland
+came to it and made laws. During the day there were rest times, when no
+business was going on. Then some skald would take his harp and walk to a
+large stone or a knoll and stand on it and begin a song of some brave
+deed of an old Norse hero. At the first sound of the harp and the
+voice, men came running from all directions, crying out:
+
+"The skald! The skald! A saga!"
+
+They stood about for hours and listened. They shouted applause. When the
+skald was tired, some other man would come up from the crowd and sing or
+tell a story. As the skald stepped down from his high position, some
+rich man would rush up to him and say:
+
+"Come and spend next winter at my house. Our ears are thirsty for song."
+
+So the best skalds traveled much and visited many people. Their songs
+made them welcome everywhere. They were always honored with good seats
+at a feast. They were given many rich gifts. Even the King of Norway
+would sometimes send across the water to Iceland, saying to some famous
+skald:
+
+"Come and visit me. You shall not go away empty-handed. Men say that the
+sweetest songs are in Iceland. I wish to hear them."
+
+These tales were not written. Few men wrote or read in those days.
+Skalds learned songs from hearing them sung. At last people began to
+write more easily. Then they said:
+
+"These stories are very precious. We must write them down to save them
+from being forgotten."
+
+After that many men in Iceland spent their winters in writing books.
+They wrote on sheepskin; vellum, we call it. Many of these old vellum
+books have been saved for hundreds of years, and are now in museums in
+Norway. Some leaves are lost, some are torn, all are yellow and
+crumpled. But they are precious. They tell us all that we know about
+that olden time. There are the very words that the men of Iceland wrote
+so long ago--stories of kings and of battles and of ship-sailing. Some
+of those old stories I have told in this book.
+
+
+
+
+_PART I_
+
+[Illustration]
+
+_IN_ NORWAY
+
+
+[Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The Baby
+
+
+King Halfdan lived in Norway long ago. One morning his queen said to
+him:
+
+"I had a strange dream last night. I thought that I stood in the grass
+before my bower.[1] I pulled a thorn from my dress. As I held it in my
+fingers, it grew into a tall tree. The trunk was thick and red as blood,
+but the lower limbs were fair and green, and the highest ones were
+white. I thought that the branches of this great tree spread so far that
+they covered all Norway and even more."
+
+"A strange dream," said King Halfdan. "Dreams are the messengers of the
+gods. I wonder what they would tell us," and he stroked his beard in
+thought.
+
+Some time after that a serving-woman came into the feast hall where King
+Halfdan was. She carried a little white bundle in her arms.
+
+"My lord," she said, "a little son is just born to you."
+
+"Ha!" cried the king, and he jumped up from the high seat and hastened
+forward until he stood before the woman.
+
+"Show him to me!" he shouted, and there was joy in his voice.
+
+The serving-woman put down her bundle on the ground and turned back the
+cloth. There was a little naked baby. The king looked at it carefully.
+
+"It is a goodly youngster," he said, and smiled. "Bring Ivar and
+Thorstein."[2]
+
+They were captains of the king's soldiers. Soon they came.
+
+"Stand as witnesses," Halfdan said.
+
+Then he lifted the baby in his arms, while the old serving-woman brought
+a silver bowl of water. The king dipped his hand into it and sprinkled
+the baby, saying:
+
+"I own this baby for my son. He shall be called Harald. My naming gift
+to him is ten pounds of gold."
+
+Then the woman carried the baby back to the queen's room.
+
+[Illustration: "_I own this baby for my son. He shall be called
+Harald_"]
+
+"My lord owns him for his son," she said. "And no wonder! He is perfect
+in every limb."
+
+The queen looked at him and smiled and remembered her dream and thought:
+
+"That great tree! Can it be this little baby of mine?"
+
+[Decoration]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] See note about house on page 194.
+
+[2] See note about names on page 194.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The Tooth Thrall
+
+
+When Harald was seven months old he cut his first tooth. Then his father
+said:
+
+"All the young of my herds, lambs and calves and colts, that have been
+born since this baby was born I this day give to him. I also give to him
+this thrall, Olaf. These are my tooth-gifts to my son."
+
+The boy grew fast, for as soon as he could walk about he was out of
+doors most of the time. He ran in the woods and climbed the hills and
+waded in the creek. He was much with his tooth thrall, for the king had
+said to Olaf:
+
+"Be ever at his call."
+
+Now this Olaf was full of stories, and Harald liked to hear them.
+
+"Come out to Aegir's Rock, Olaf, and tell me stories," he said almost
+every day.
+
+So they started off across the hills. The man wore a long, loose coat of
+white wool, belted at the waist with a strap. He had on coarse shoes
+and leather leggings. Around his neck was an iron collar welded together
+so that it could not come off. On it were strange marks, called runes,
+that said:
+
+"Olaf, thrall of Halfdan."
+
+But Harald's clothes were gay. A cape of gray velvet hung from his
+shoulders. It was fastened over his breast with great gold buckles. When
+it waved in the wind, a scarlet lining flashed out, and the bottom of a
+little scarlet jacket showed. His feet and legs were covered with gray
+woolen tights. Gold lacings wound around his legs from his shoes to his
+knees. A band of gold held down his long, yellow hair.
+
+It was a wild country that these two were walking over. They were
+climbing steep, rough hills. Some of them seemed made all of rock, with
+a little earth lying in spots. Great rocks hung out from them, with
+trees growing in their cracks. Some big pieces had broken off and rolled
+down the hill.
+
+"Thor broke them," Olaf said. "He rides through the sky and hurls his
+hammer at clouds and at mountains. That makes the thunder and the
+lightning and cracks the hills. His hammer never misses its aim, and it
+always comes back to his hand and is eager to go again."
+
+When they reached the top of the hill they looked back. Far below was a
+soft, green valley. In front of it the sea came up into the land and
+made a fiord. On each side of the fiord high walls of rock stood up and
+made the water black with shadow. All around the valley were high hills
+with dark pines on them. Far off were the mountains. In the valley were
+Halfdan's houses around their square yard.
+
+"How little our houses look down there!" Harald said. "But I can
+almost--yes, I can see the red dragon on the roof of the feast hall. Do
+you remember when I climbed up and sat on his head, Olaf?"
+
+He laughed and kicked his heels and ran on.
+
+[Illustration: "_He threw back his cape and drew a little dagger from
+his belt_"]
+
+At last they came to Aegir's Rock and walked up on its flat top. Harald
+went to the edge and looked over. A ragged wall of rock reached down,
+and two hundred feet below was the black water of the fiord. Olaf
+watched him for a while, then he said:
+
+"No whitening of your cheek, Harald? Good! A boy that can face the fall
+of Aegir's Rock will not be afraid to face the war flash when he is a
+man."
+
+"Ho, I am not afraid of the war flash now," cried Harald.
+
+He threw back his cape and drew a little dagger from his belt.
+
+"See!" he cried; "does this not flash like a sword? And I am not afraid.
+But after all, this is a baby thing! When I am eight years old I will
+have a sword, a sharp tooth of war."
+
+He swung his dagger as though it were a long sword. Then he ran and sat
+on a rock by Olaf.
+
+"Why is this Aegir's Rock?" he asked.
+
+"You know that Asgard is up in the sky," Olaf said. "It is a wonderful
+city where the golden houses of the gods are in the golden grove. A
+high wall runs all around it. In the house of Odin, the All-father,
+there is a great feast hall larger than the whole earth. Its name is
+Valhalla. It has five hundred doors. The rafters are spears. The roof is
+thatched with shields. Armor lies on the benches. In the high seat sits
+Odin, a golden helmet on his head, a spear in his hand. Two wolves lie
+at his feet. At his right hand and his left sit all the gods and
+goddesses, and around the hall sit thousands and thousands of men, all
+the brave ones that have ever died.
+
+"Now it is good to be in Valhalla; for there is mead there better than
+men can brew, and it never runs out. And there are skalds that sing
+wonderful songs that men never heard. And before the doors of Valhalla
+is a great meadow where the warriors fight every day and get glorious
+and sweet wounds and give many. And all night they feast, and their
+wounds heal. But none may go to Valhalla except warriors that have died
+bravely in battle. Men who die from sickness go with women and children
+and cowards to Niflheim. There Hela, who is queen, always sneers at
+them, and a terrible cold takes hold of their bones, and they sit down
+and freeze.
+
+"Years ago Aegir was a great warrior. Aegir the Big-handed, they called
+him. In many a battle his sword had sung, and he had sent many warriors
+to Valhalla. Many swords had bit into his flesh and left marks there,
+but never a one had struck him to death. So his hair grew white and his
+arms thin. There was peace in that country then, and Aegir sorrowed,
+saying:
+
+"'I am old. Battles are still. Must I die in bed like a woman? Shall I
+not see Valhalla?'
+
+"Now thus did Odin say long ago:
+
+"'If a man is old and is come near death and cannot die in fight, let
+him find death in some brave way and he shall feast with me in
+Valhalla.'
+
+"So one day Aegir came to this rock.
+
+"'A deed to win Valhalla!' he cried.
+
+"Then he drew his sword and flashed it over his head and held his shield
+high above him, and leaped out into the air and died in the water of
+the fiord."
+
+"Ho!" cried Harald, jumping to his feet. "I think that Odin stood up
+before his high seat and welcomed that man gladly when he walked through
+the door of Valhalla."
+
+"So the songs say," replied Olaf, "for skalds still sing of that deed
+all over Norway."
+
+[Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Olaf's Farm
+
+
+At another time Harald asked:
+
+"What is your country, Olaf? Have you always been a thrall?"
+
+The thrall's eyes flashed.
+
+"When you are a man," he said, "and go a-viking to Denmark, ask men
+whether they ever heard of Olaf the Crafty. There, far off, is my
+country, across the water. My father was Gudbrand the Big. Two hundred
+warriors feasted in his hall and followed him to battle. Ten sons sat at
+meat with him, and I was the youngest. One day he said:
+
+"'You are all grown to be men. There is not elbow-room here for so many
+chiefs. The eldest of you shall have my farm when I die. The rest of
+you, off a-viking!'
+
+"He had three ships. These he gave to three of my brothers. But I stayed
+that spring and built me a boat. I made her for only twenty oars because
+I thought few men would follow me; for I was young, fifteen years old.
+I made her in the likeness of a dragon. At the prow I carved the head
+with open mouth and forked tongue thrust out. I painted the eyes red for
+anger.
+
+"'There, stand so!' I said, 'and glare and hiss at my foes.'
+
+"In the stern I curved the tail up almost as high as the head. There I
+put the pilot's seat and a strong tiller for the rudder. On the breast
+and sides I carved the dragon's scales. Then I painted it all black and
+on the tip of every scale I put gold. I called her 'Waverunner.' There
+she sat on the rollers, as fair a ship as I ever saw.
+
+"The night that it was finished I went to my father's feast. After the
+meats were eaten and the mead-horns came round, I stood up from my bench
+and raised my drinking-horn[3] high and spoke with a great voice:
+
+"'This is my vow: I will sail to Norway and I will harry the coast and
+fill my boat with riches. Then I will get me a farm and will winter in
+that land. Now who will follow me?'
+
+"'He is but a boy,' the men said. 'He has opened his mouth wider than he
+can do.'
+
+"But others jumped to their feet with their mead-horns in their hands.
+Thirty men, one after another, raised their horns and said:
+
+"'I will follow this lad, and I will not turn back so long as he and I
+live!'
+
+"On the next morning we got into my dragon and started. I sat high in
+the pilot's seat. As our boat flashed down the rollers into the water I
+made this song and sang it:
+
+    "'The dragon runs.
+    Where will she steer?
+    Where swords will sing,
+    Where spears will bite,
+    Where I shall laugh.'
+
+"So we harried the coast of Norway. We ate at many men's tables
+uninvited. Many men we found overburdened with gold. Then I said:
+
+"'My dragon's belly is never full,' and on board went the gold.
+
+"Oh! it is better to live on the sea and let other men raise your crops
+and cook your meals. A house smells of smoke, a ship smells of frolic.
+From a house you see a sooty roof, from a ship you see Valhalla.
+
+"Up and down the water we went to get much wealth and much frolic. After
+a while my men said:
+
+"'What of the farm, Olaf?'
+
+"'Not yet,' I answered. 'Viking is better for summer. When the ice
+comes, and our dragon cannot play, then we will get our farm and sit
+down.'
+
+"At last the winter came, and I said to my men:
+
+"'Now for the farm. I have my eye on one up the coast a way in King
+Halfdan's country.'
+
+"So we set off for it. We landed late at night and pulled our boat up on
+shore and walked quietly to the house. It was rather a wealthy farm, for
+there were stables and a storehouse and a smithy at the sides of the
+house. There was but one door to the house. We went to it, and I struck
+it with my spear.
+
+[Illustration: "_I struck my shield against the door so that it made a
+great clanging_"]
+
+"'Hello! Ho! Hello!' I shouted, and my men made a great din.
+
+"At last some one from inside said:
+
+"'Who calls?'
+
+"'I call,' I answered. 'Open! or you will think it Thor who calls,' and
+I struck my shield against the door so that it made a great clanging.
+
+"The door opened only a little, but I pushed it wide and leaped into the
+room. It was so dark that I could see nothing but a few sparks on the
+hearth. I stood with my back to the wall; for I wanted no sword reaching
+out of the dark for me.
+
+"'Now start up the fire,' I said.
+
+"'Come, come!' I called, when no one obeyed. 'A fire! This is cold
+welcome for your guests.'
+
+"My men laughed.
+
+"'Yes, a stingy host! He acts as though he had not expected us.'
+
+"But now the farmer was blowing on the coals and putting on fresh wood.
+Soon it blazed up, and we could see about us. We were in a little feast
+hall,[4] with its fire down the middle of it. There were benches for
+twenty men along each side. The farmer crouched by the fire, afraid to
+move. On a bench in a far corner were a dozen people huddled together.
+
+"'Ho, thralls!' I called to them. 'Bring in the table. We are hungry.'
+
+"Off they ran through a door at the back of the hall. My men came in and
+lay down by the fire and warmed themselves, but I set two of them as
+guards at the door.
+
+"'Well, friend farmer,' laughed one, 'why such a long face? Do you not
+think we shall be merry company?'
+
+"'We came only to cheer you,' said another. 'What man wants to spend the
+winter with no guests?'
+
+"'Ah!' another then cried out, sitting up. 'Here comes something that
+will be a welcome guest to my stomach.'
+
+"The thralls were bringing in a great pot of meat. They set up a crane
+over the fire and hung the pot upon it, and we sat and watched it boil
+while we joked. At last the supper began. The farmer sat gloomily on the
+bench and would not eat, and you cannot wonder; for he saw us putting
+potfuls of his good beef and basket-loads of bread into our big mouths.
+When the tables were taken out and the mead-horns came round, I stood up
+and raised my horn and said to the farmer:
+
+"'You would not eat with us. You cannot say no to half of my ale. I
+drink this to your health.'
+
+"Then I drank half of the hornful and sent the rest across the fire to
+the farmer. He took it and smiled, saying:
+
+"'Since it is to my health, I will drink it. I thought that all this
+night's work would be my death.'
+
+"'Oh, do not fear that!' I laughed, 'for a dead man sets no tables.'
+
+"So we drank and all grew merrier. At last I stood up and said:
+
+"'I like this little taste of your hospitality, friend farmer. I have
+decided to accept more of it.'
+
+"My men roared with laughter.
+
+"'Come,' they cried, 'thank him for that, farmer. Did you ever have such
+a lordly guest before?'
+
+"I went on:
+
+"'Now there is no fun in having guests unless they keep you company and
+make you merry. So I will give out this law: that my men shall never
+leave you alone. Hakon there shall be your constant companion, friend
+farmer. He shall not leave you day or night, whether you are working or
+playing or sleeping. Leif and Grim shall be the same kind of friends to
+your two sons.'
+
+"I named nine others and said:
+
+"'And these shall follow your thralls in the same way. Now, am I not
+careful to make your time go merrily?'
+
+"So I set guards over every one in that house. Not once all that winter
+did they stir out of sight of some of us. So no tales got out to the
+neighbors. Besides, it was a lonely place, and by good luck no one came
+that way. Oh! that was fat and easy living.
+
+"Well, after we had been there for a long time, Hakon came in to the
+feast one night and said:
+
+"'I heard a cuckoo to-day!'
+
+"'It is the call to go a-viking,' I said.
+
+"All my men put their hands to their mouths and shouted. Their eyes
+danced. Big Thorleif stood up and stretched himself.
+
+"'I am stiff with long sitting,' he said. 'I itch for a fight.'
+
+"I turned to the farmer.
+
+"'This is our last feast with you,' I said.
+
+"'Well,' he laughed, 'this has been the busiest winter I ever spent, and
+the merriest. May good luck go with you!'
+
+"'By the beard of Odin!' I cried; 'you have taken our joke like a man.'
+
+"My men pounded the table with their fists.
+
+"'By the hammer of Thor!' shouted Grim. 'Here is no stingy coward. He is
+a man fit to carry my drinking-horn, the horn of a sea-rover and a
+sword-swinger. Here, friend, take it,' and he thrust it into the
+farmer's hand. 'May you drink heart's-ease from it for many years. And
+with it I leave you a name, Sif the Friendly. I shall hope to drink with
+you sometime in Valhalla.'
+
+"Then all my men poured around that farmer and clapped him on the
+shoulder and piled things upon him, saying:
+
+"'Here is a ring for Sif the Friendly.'
+
+"'And here is a bracelet.'
+
+"'A sword would not be ashamed to hang at your side.'
+
+"I took five great bracelets of gold from our treasure chest and gave
+them to him.
+
+"The old man's eyes opened wide at all these things, and at the same
+time he laughed.
+
+"'May Odin send me such guests every winter!' he said.
+
+"Early next morning we shook hands with our host and boarded the
+'Waverunner' and sailed off.
+
+"'Where shall we go?' my men asked.
+
+"'Let the gods decide,' I said, and tossed up my spear.
+
+"When it fell on the deck it pointed up-shore, so I steered in that
+direction. That is the best way to decide, for the spear will always
+point somewhere, and one thing is as good as another. That time it
+pointed us into your father's ships. They closed in battle with us and
+killed my men and sunk my ship and dragged me off a prisoner. They were
+three against one, or they might have tasted something more bitter at
+our hands. They took me before King Halfdan.
+
+"'Here,' they said, 'is a rascal who has been harrying our coasts. We
+sunk his ship and men, but him we brought to you.'
+
+"'A robber viking?' said the king, and scowled at me.
+
+"I threw back my head and laughed.
+
+"'Yes. And with all your fingers it took you a year to catch me.'
+
+"The king frowned more angrily.
+
+"'Saucy, too?' he said. 'Well, thieves must die. Take him out, Thorkel,
+and let him taste your sword.'
+
+"Your mother, the queen, was standing by. Now she put her hand on his
+arm and smiled and said:
+
+"'He is only a lad. Let him live. And would he not be a good gift for
+our baby?'
+
+"Your father thought a moment, then looked at your mother and smiled.
+
+"'Soft heart!' he said gently to her; then to Thorkel, 'Well, let him
+go, Thorkel!'
+
+"Then he turned to me again, frowning.
+
+"'But, young sharp-tongue, now that we have caught you we will put you
+into a trap that you cannot get out of. Weld an iron collar on his
+neck.'
+
+"So I lived and now am your tooth thrall. Well, it is the luck of war.
+But by the chair of Odin, I kept my vow!"
+
+"Yes!" cried Harald, jumping to his feet. "And had a joke into the
+bargain. Ah! sometime I will make a brave vow like that."
+
+[Decoration]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[3] See note about drinking-horns on page 195.
+
+[4] See note about feast hall on page 196.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Olaf's Fight With Havard
+
+
+At another time Harald said:
+
+"Tell me of a fight, Olaf. I want to hear about the music of swords."
+
+Olaf's eyes blazed.
+
+"I will tell you of our fight with King Havard," he said.
+
+"One dark night we had landed at a farm. We left our 'Waverunner' in the
+water with three men to guard her. The rest of us went into the house.
+The farmer met us at the door, but he died by Thorkel's sword. The
+others we shut into their beds.[5] The door at each end of the hall we
+had barred on the inside so that nobody could surprise us. We were busy
+going through the cupboards and shouting at our good luck. But suddenly
+we heard a shout outside:
+
+"'Thor and Havard!'
+
+"Then there was a great beating at the doors.
+
+"'He has two hundred fighters with him,' said Grim; 'for we saw his
+ships last night. Thirty against two hundred! We shall all drink in
+Valhalla to-night.'
+
+"'Well,' I cried, 'Odin shall have no unwilling guest in me.'
+
+"'Nor in me,' cried Hakon.
+
+"'Nor in me,' shouted Thorkel.
+
+"And that shout went all around, and we drew out our swords and caught
+up our shields.
+
+"'Hot work is ahead of us,' said Hakon. 'Besides, we must leave none of
+this mead for Havard. Lend a hand, some one.'
+
+"Then he and another pulled out a great tub that sat on the floor of the
+cupboard.
+
+"'I drink to Valhalla to-night,' cried Thorkel the Thirsty, and he
+plunged his horn deep into the tub.
+
+"When he brought it up, his sleeve was dripping and the sweet mead was
+running over from the horn.
+
+"'Sloven!' cried Hakon, and he struck Thorkel with his fist and knocked
+him over into the cupboard.
+
+"He fell against the wooden wall at the back, and a carved panel swung
+open behind him. He dropped down head first. In a minute he put his head
+out of the hole again. We all stood staring.
+
+"'I think it is a secret passage,' he said.
+
+"'We will try it,' I answered in a whisper. 'Throw dirt on the fire. It
+must be dark.'
+
+"So we dug up dirt from the earth floor and smothered the fire. All this
+time there was a terrible shouting and hammering at the doors, but they
+were of heavy logs and stood.
+
+"'I with four more will guard this door,' I said, pointing to the east
+end.
+
+"Immediately four men stepped to my side.
+
+"'And I will guard the other,' Hakon said, and four went with him.
+
+"'The rest of you, down the hole!' I said. 'Close the door after you. If
+luck is with us we will meet at the ships. Now Thor and our good swords
+help us! Quick! The doors are giving way.'
+
+"So we ten men stood at the doors and held back the king's soldiers. It
+was dark in the room, and the people out of doors could not tell how
+many were inside. Few were eager to be the first in.
+
+"'Thirty swords are waiting in there to eat up the first man,' we heard
+some one say.
+
+"We chuckled at that.
+
+"But the king stood in the very doorway and fought. Our five swords held
+him back for a long time, but at last he pushed in, and his men poured
+after him. We ran back and hid behind some tubs in a dark corner. The
+king's men went groping about and calling, but they did not find us. The
+room was full of shouting and running and sword-clashing; for in the
+dark and the noise the men could not tell their own soldiers. More than
+one fell by his friend's sword. When it was less crowded about the
+doorway, I whispered:
+
+"'Follow me in double line. We will make for the ships. Keep close
+together.'
+
+"So that double line of men, with swords swinging from both sides, ran
+out through the dark. Swords struck out at us, and we struck back. Men
+ran after us shouting, but our legs were as good as theirs. But I and
+Hakon and one other were all that reached the ship. There we saw our
+'Waverunner' with sail up and bow pointing to open sea. We swam out to
+her and climbed aboard. Then the men swung the sail to the wind, and we
+moved off. Even as we went, a spear whizzed through the air, and Hakon
+fell dead; for the king and all his men were running to the shore.
+
+"'After them!' they were shouting.
+
+"Then we heard the king call to the men in his boats lying out in the
+water:
+
+"'Row to shore and take us in.'
+
+"Thorkel was standing by my side. At that he laughed and said:
+
+"'They do not answer. He left but a handful to guard his ships. They
+tasted our swords. And we went aboard and broke the oars and threw the
+sails into the water. It will be slow going for Havard to-night.'
+
+[Illustration: "_Then he turned to the shore and sang out loudly_"]
+
+"Then he turned to the shore and sang out loudly:
+
+    "'King Havard's ships are dead:
+    Olaf's dragon flies.
+    King Havard stamps the shore:
+    Olaf skims the waves.
+    King Havard shakes his fist.
+    Olaf turns and laughs.'
+
+"That was the end of our meeting with King Havard."
+
+[Decoration]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[5] See note about beds on page 196.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Foes'-fear
+
+
+Every day the boy Harald heard some such story of war or of the gods,
+until he could see Thor riding among the storm-clouds and throwing his
+hammer, until he knew that a brave man has many wounds, but never a one
+on his back. Many nights he dreamed that he himself walked into
+Valhalla, and that all the heroes stood up and shouted:
+
+"Welcome! Harald Halfdanson!"
+
+"Ah! the bite of the sword is sweeter than the kiss of your mother," he
+said to Olaf one day. "When shall I stand in the prow of a dragon and
+feast on the fight? I am hungry to see the world. Ivar the Far-goer
+tells me of the strange countries he has seen. Ah! we vikings are great
+folk. There is no water that has not licked our boats' sides. This cape
+of mine came in a viking boat from France. These cloak-pins came from a
+far country called Greece. In my father's house are golden cups from
+Rome, away on the southern sea. Every land pours rich things into our
+treasure-chest. Ivar has been to a strange country where it is all sand
+and is very hot. The people call their country Arabia. They have never
+heard of Thor or Odin. Ivar brought beautiful striped cloth from there,
+and wonderful, sweet-smelling waters. Oh! when shall the white horses of
+the sea lead me out to strange lands and glorious battles?"
+
+But Harald did something besides listen to stories. Every morning he was
+up at sunrise and went with a thrall to feed the hunting dogs. Thorstein
+taught him to swim in the rough waters of the fiord. Often he went with
+the men a-hunting in the woods and learned to ride a horse and pull a
+bow and throw a lance. Ivar taught him to play the harp and to make up
+songs. He went much to the smithy, where the warriors mended their
+helmets and made their spears and swords of iron and bronze. At first he
+only watched the men or worked the bellows, but soon he could handle the
+tongs and hold the red-hot iron, and after a long time he learned to
+use the hammer and to shape metal. One day he made himself a spear-head.
+It was two feet long and sharp on both edges. While the iron was hot he
+beat into it some runes. When the men in the smithy saw the runes they
+opened their eyes wide and looked at the boy, for few Norsemen could
+read.
+
+"What does it say?" they asked.
+
+"It is the name of my spear-point, and it says, 'Foes'-fear,'" Harald
+said. "But now for a handle."
+
+It was winter and the snow was very deep. So Harald put on his skees and
+started for a wood that was back from shore. Down the mountains he went,
+twenty, thirty feet at a slide, leaping over chasms a hundred feet
+across. In his scarlet cloak he looked like a flash of fire. The wind
+shot past him howling. His eyes danced at the fun.
+
+"It is like flying," he thought and laughed. "I am an eagle. Now I
+soar," as he leaped over a frozen river.
+
+He saw a slender ash growing on top of a high rock.
+
+"That is the handle for 'Foes'-fear,'" he said.
+
+The rock stood up like a ragged tower, but he did not stop because of
+the steep climb. He threw off his skees and thrust his hands and feet
+into holes of the rock and drew himself up. He tore his jacket and cut
+his leather leggings and scratched his face and bruised his hands, but
+at last he was on the top. Soon he had chopped down the tree and had cut
+a straight pole ten feet long and as big around as his arm. He went
+down, sliding and jumping and tearing himself on the sharp stones. With
+a last leap he landed near his skees. As he did so a lean wolf jumped
+and snapped at him, snarling. Harald shouted and swung his pole. The
+wolf dodged, but quickly jumped again and caught the boy's arm between
+his sharp teeth. Harald thought of the spear-point in his belt. In a
+wink he had it out and was striking with it. He drove it into the wolf's
+neck and threw him back on the snow, dead.
+
+"You are the first to feel the tooth of 'Foes'-fear,'" he said, "but I
+think you will not be the last."
+
+[Illustration: "_He drove it into the wolf's neck_"]
+
+Then without thinking of his torn arm he put on his skees and went
+leaping home. He went straight to the smithy and smoothed his pole and
+drove it into the haft of the spear-point. He hammered out a gold band
+and put it around the joining place. He made nails with beautiful heads
+and drove them into the pole in different places.
+
+"If it is heavy it will strike hard," he said.
+
+Then he weighed the spear in his hand and found the balancing point and
+put another gold band there to mark it.
+
+Thorstein came in while he was working.
+
+"A good spear," he said.
+
+Then he saw the torn sleeve and the red wound beneath.
+
+"Hello!" he cried. "Your first wound?"
+
+"Oh, it is only a wolf-scratch," Harald answered.
+
+"By Thor!" cried Thorstein, "I see that you are ready for better wounds.
+You bear this like a warrior."
+
+"I think it will not be my last," Harald said.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Harald is King
+
+
+Now when Harald was ten years old his father, King Halfdan, died. An old
+book that tells about Harald says that then "he was the biggest of all
+men, the strongest, and the fairest to look upon." That about a boy ten
+years old! But boys grew fast in those days for they were out of doors
+all the time, running, swimming, leaping on skees, and hunting in the
+forest. All that makes big, manly boys.
+
+So now King Halfdan was dead and buried, and Harald was to be king. But
+first he must drink his father's funeral ale.
+
+"Take down the gay tapestries that hang in the feast hall," he said to
+the thralls. "Put up black and gray ones. Strew the floor with pine
+branches. Brew twenty tubs of fresh ale and mead. Scour every dish until
+it shines."
+
+Then Harald sent messengers all over that country to his kinsmen and
+friends.
+
+"Bid them come in three months' time to drink my father's funeral ale,"
+he said. "Tell them that no one shall go away empty-handed."
+
+So in three months men came riding up at every hour. Some came in boats.
+But many had ridden far through mountains, swimming rivers; for there
+were few roads or bridges in Norway. On account of that hard ride no
+women came to the feast.
+
+At nine o'clock in the night the feast began. The men came walking in at
+the west end of the hall.[6] The great bonfires down the middle of the
+room were flashing light on everything. The clean smell of this
+wood-smoke and of the pine branches on the floor was pleasant to the
+guests. Down each side of the hall stretched long, backless benches,
+with room for three hundred men. In the middle of each side rose the
+high seat, a great carved chair on a platform. All along behind the
+benches were the black and gray draperies. Here hung the shields of the
+guests; for every man, when he was given his place, turned and hung his
+shield behind him and set his tall spear by it. So on each wall there
+was a long row of gay shields, red and green and yellow, and all shining
+with gold or bronze trimmings. And higher up there was another row of
+gleaming spear-points. Above the hall the rafters were carved and gaily
+painted, so that dragons seemed to be crawling across, or eagles seemed
+to be swooping down.
+
+The guests walked in laughing and talking with their big voices so that
+the rafters rang. They made the hall look all the brighter with their
+clothes of scarlet and blue and green, with their flashing golden
+bracelets and head-bands and sword-scabbards, with their flying hair of
+red or yellow.
+
+Across the east end of the hall was a bench. When the men were all in,
+the queen, Harald's mother, and the women who lived with her, walked in
+through the east door and sat upon this bench.
+
+Then thralls came running in and set up the long tables[7] before the
+benches. Other thralls ran in with large steaming kettles of meat. They
+put big pieces of this meat into platters of wood and set it before the
+men. They had a few dishes of silver. These they put before the guests
+at the middle of the tables; for the great people sat here near the high
+seats.
+
+When the meat came, the talking stopped; for Norsemen ate only twice a
+day, and these men had had long rides and were hungry. Three or four
+persons ate from one platter and drank from the same big bowl of milk.
+They had no forks, so they ate from their fingers and threw the bones
+under the table among the pine branches. Sometimes they took knives from
+their belts to cut the meat.
+
+When the guests sat back satisfied, Harald called to the thralls:
+
+"Carry out the tables."
+
+So they did and brought in two great tubs of mead and set one at each
+end of the hall. Then the queen stood up and called some of her women.
+They went to the mead tubs. They took the horns, when the thralls had
+filled them, and carried them to the men with some merry word. Perhaps
+one woman said as she handed a man his horn:
+
+"This horn has no feet to be set down upon. You must drink it at one
+draught."
+
+Perhaps another said:
+
+"Mead loves a merry face."
+
+The women were beautiful, moving about the hall. The queen wore a
+trailing dress of blue velvet with long flowing sleeves. She had a short
+apron of striped Arabian silk with gold fringe along the bottom. From
+her shoulders hung a long train of scarlet wool embroidered in gold.
+White linen covered her head. Her long yellow hair was pulled around at
+the sides and over her breast and was fastened under the belt of her
+apron. As she walked, her train made a pleasant rustle among the pine
+branches. She was tall and straight and strong. Some of her younger
+women wore no linen on their heads and had their white arms bare, with
+bracelets shining on them. They, too, were tall and strong.
+
+All the time men were calling across the fire to one another asking news
+or telling jokes and laughing.
+
+An old man, Harald's uncle, sat in the high seat on the north side. That
+was the place of honor. But the high seat on the south side was empty;
+for that was the king's seat. Harald sat on the steps before it.
+
+The feast went merrily until long after midnight. Then the thralls took
+some of the guests to the guest house to sleep, and some to the beds
+around the sides of the feast hall. But some men lay down on the benches
+and drew their cloaks over themselves.
+
+On the next night there was another feast. Still Harald sat on the step
+before the high seat. But when the tables were gone and the horns were
+going around, he stood up and raised high a horn of ale and said loudly:
+
+"This horn of memory I drink in honor of my father, Halfdan, son of
+Gudrod, who sits now in Valhalla. And I vow that I will grind my
+father's foes under my heel."
+
+Then he drank the ale and sat down in the king's high seat, while all
+the men stood up and raised their horns and shouted:
+
+"King Harald!"
+
+And some cried:
+
+"That was a brave vow."
+
+[Illustration: "_I vow that I will grind my father's foes under my
+heel_"]
+
+And Harald's uncle called out:
+
+"A health to King Harald!"
+
+And they all drank it.
+
+Then a man stood up and said:
+
+"Hear my song of King Halfdan!" for this man was a skald.
+
+"Yes, the song!" shouted the men, and Harald nodded his head.
+
+So the skald took down his great harp from the wall behind him and went
+and stood before Harald. The bottom of the harp rested on the floor, but
+the top reached as high as the skald's shoulders. The brass frame shone
+in the light. The strings were some of gold and some of silver. The man
+struck them with his hand and sang of King Halfdan, of his battles, of
+his strong arm and good sword, of his death, and of how men loved him.
+
+When he had finished, King Harald took a bracelet from his arm and gave
+it to him, saying:
+
+"Take this as thanks for your good song."
+
+The guests stayed the next day and at night there was another feast.
+When the mead horns were going around, King Harald stood up and spoke:
+
+"I said that no man should go away empty-handed from drinking my
+father's funeral ale."
+
+He beckoned the thralls, and they brought in a great treasure-chest and
+set it down by the high seat. King Harald opened it and took out rich
+gifts--capes and sword-belts and beautiful cloth and bracelets and gold
+cloak-pins. These he sent about the hall and gave something to every
+man. The guests wondered at the richness of his gifts.
+
+"This young king has an open hand," they said, "and deep
+treasure-chests."
+
+After breakfast the next morning the guests went out and stood by their
+horses ready to go, but before they mounted, thralls brought a horn of
+mead to each man. That was called the stirrup-horn, because after they
+drank it the men put their feet to the stirrups and sprang upon their
+horses and started. King Harald and his people rode a little way with
+them.
+
+All men said that that was the richest funeral feast that ever was
+held.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] See note about feast hall on page 196.
+
+[7] See note about tables on page 196.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Harald's Battle
+
+
+Now King Halfdan had many foes. When he was alive they were afraid to
+make war upon him, for he was a mighty warrior. But when Harald became
+king, they said:
+
+"He is but a lad. We will fight with him and take his land."
+
+So they began to make ready. King Harald heard of this and he laughed
+and said:
+
+"Good! 'Foes'-fear' is thirsty, and my legs are stiff with much
+sitting."
+
+He called three men to him. To one he gave an arrow, saying:
+
+"Run and carry this arrow north. Give it into the hands of the master of
+the next farm, and say that all men are to meet here within two weeks
+from this day. They must come ready for war and mounted on horses. Say
+also that if a man does not obey this call, or if he receives this arrow
+and does not carry it on to his next neighbor, he shall be outlawed
+from this country, and his land shall be taken from him."
+
+He gave arrows to the other two men and told them to run south and east
+with the same message.
+
+So all through King Harald's country men were soon busy mending helmets
+and polishing swords and making shields. There was blazing of forges and
+clanging of anvils all through the land.
+
+On the day set, the fields about King Harald's house were full of men
+and horses. After breakfast a horn blew. Every man snatched his weapons
+and jumped upon his horse. Men of the same neighborhood stood together,
+and their chief led them. They waited for the starting horn. This did
+not look like our army. There were no uniforms. Some men wore helmets,
+some did not. Some wore coats of mail, but others wore only their
+jackets and tights of bright-colored wool. But at each man's left side
+hung a great shield. Over his right shoulder went his sword-belt and
+held his long sword under his left hand. Above most men's heads shone
+the points of their tall spears. Some men carried axes in their belts.
+Some carried bows and arrows. Many had ram's horns hanging from their
+necks.
+
+King Harald rode at the front of his army with his standard-bearer
+beside him. Chain-armor covered the king's body. A red cloak was thrown
+over his shoulders. On his head was a gold helmet with a dragon standing
+up from it. He carried a round shield on his left arm. The king had made
+that shield himself. It was of brass. The rivets were of silver, with
+strangely shaped heads. On the back of Harald's horse was a red cloth
+trimmed with the fur of ermine.
+
+King Harald looked up at his standard and laughed aloud.
+
+"Oh, War-lover," he cried, "you and I ride out on a gay journey."
+
+A horn blew again and the army started. The men shouted as they went,
+and blew their ram's horns.
+
+"Now we shall taste something better than even King Harald's ale,"
+shouted one.
+
+Another rose in his stirrups and sniffed the air.
+
+"Ah! I smell a battle," he cried. "It is sweeter than those strange
+waters of Arabia."
+
+So the army went merrily through the land. They carried no tents, they
+had no provision wagons.
+
+"The sky is a good enough tent for a soldier," said the Norsemen. "Why
+carry provisions when they lie in the farms beside you?"
+
+After two days King Harald saw another army on the hills.
+
+"Thorstein," he shouted, "up with the white shield and go tell King Haki
+to choose his battle-field. We will wait but an hour. I am eager for the
+frolic."
+
+So Thorstein raised a white shield on his spear as a sign that he came
+on an errand of peace. He rode near King Haki, but he could not wait
+until he came close before he shouted out his message and then turned
+and rode back.
+
+"Tell your boy king that we will not hang back," Haki called after
+Thorstein.
+
+King Harald's men waited on the hillside and watched the other army
+across the valley. They saw King Haki point and saw twenty men ride off
+as he pointed. They stopped in a patch of hazel and hewed with their
+axes.
+
+"They are getting the hazels," said Thorstein.
+
+"Audun," said King Harald to a man near him, "stay close to my standard
+all day. You must see the best of the fight. I want to hear a song about
+it after it is over."
+
+This Audun was the skald who sang at the drinking of King Halfdan's
+funeral ale.
+
+King Haki's men rode down into the valley. They drove down stakes all
+about a great field. They tied the hazel twigs to the stakes in a
+string. But they left an open space toward King Harald's army and one
+toward King Haki's. Then a man raised a white shield and galloped toward
+King Harald.
+
+"We are ready!" he shouted.
+
+At the same time King Haki raised a red shield. King Harald's men put
+their shields before their mouths and shouted into them. It made a great
+roaring war-cry.
+
+"Up with the war shield!" shouted King Harald. "Horns blow!"
+
+There was a blowing of horns on both sides. The two armies galloped down
+into the field and ran together. The fight had begun.
+
+All that day long swords were flashing, spears flying, men shouting, men
+falling from their horses, swords clashing against shields.
+
+"Victory flashes from that dragon," Harald's men said, pointing to the
+king's helmet. "No one stands before it."
+
+And, surely, before night came, King Haki fell dead under "Foes'-fear."
+When he fell, a great shout went up from his warriors, and they turned
+and fled. King Harald's men chased them far, but during the night came
+back to camp. Many brought swords and helmets and bracelets or
+silver-trimmed saddles and bridles with them.
+
+"Here is what we got from the foe," they said.
+
+The next morning King Harald spoke to his men:
+
+"Let us go about and find our dead."
+
+[Illustration: "_King Haki fell dead under 'Foes'-fear'_"]
+
+So they went over all the battle-field. They put every man on his shield
+and carried him and laid him on a hill-top. They hung his sword over his
+shoulder and laid his spear by his side. So they laid all the dead
+together there on the hill-top. Then King Harald said, looking about:
+
+"This is a good place to lie. It looks far over the country. The sound
+of the sea reaches it. The wind sweeps here. It is a good grave for
+Norsemen and Vikings. But it is a long road and a rough road to Valhalla
+that these men must travel. Let the nearest kinsman of each man come and
+tie on his hell-shoes. Tie them fast, for they will need them much on
+that hard road."
+
+So friends tied shoes on the dead men's feet. Then King Harald said:
+
+"Now let us make the mound."
+
+Every man set to work with what tools he had and heaped earth over the
+dead until a great mound stood up. They piled stones on the top. On one
+of these stones King Harald made runes telling how these men had died.
+
+After that was done King Harald said:
+
+"Now set up the pole, Thorstein. Let every man bring to that pole all
+that he took from the foe."
+
+So they did, and there was a great hill of things around it. Harald
+divided it into piles.
+
+"This pile we will give to Thor in thanks for the victory," he said.
+"This pile is mine because I am king. Here are the piles for the chiefs,
+and these things go to the other men of the army."
+
+So every man went away from that battle richer than he was before, and
+Thor looked down from Valhalla upon his full temple and was pleased.
+
+The next morning King Harald led his army back. But on the way he met
+other foes and had many battles and did not lose one. The kings either
+died in battle or ran away, and Harald had their lands.
+
+"He has kept his vow," men said, "and ground his father's foes under his
+heel."
+
+So King Harald sat in peace for a while.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Gyda's Saucy Message
+
+
+Now Harald heard men talk of Gyda, the daughter of King Eric.
+
+"She is very beautiful," they said, "but she is very proud, too. She can
+both read and make runes. No other woman in the world knows so much
+about herbs as she does. She can cure any sickness. And she is proud of
+all this!"
+
+Now when King Harald heard that, he thought to himself:
+
+"Fair and proud. I like them both. I will have her for my wife."
+
+So he called his uncle, Guthorm, and said:
+
+"Take rich gifts and go to Gyda's foster-father[8] and tell him that I
+will marry Gyda."
+
+So Guthorm and his men came to that house and they told the king's
+message to the foster-father. Gyda was standing near, weaving a rich
+cloak. She heard the speech. She came up and said, holding her head
+high and curling her lip:
+
+"I will not waste myself on a king of so few people. Norway is a strange
+country. There is a little king here and a little king there--hundreds
+of them scattered about. Now in Denmark there is but one great king over
+the whole land. And it is so in Sweden. Is no one brave enough to make
+all of Norway his own?"
+
+She laughed a scornful laugh and walked away. The men stood with open
+mouths and stared after her. Could it be that she had sent that saucy
+message to King Harald? They looked at her foster-father. He was
+chuckling in his beard and said nothing to them. They started out of the
+house in anger. When they were at the door, Gyda came up to them again
+and said:
+
+"Give this message to your King Harald for me: I will not be his wife
+unless he puts all of Norway under him for my sake."
+
+[Illustration: "_I will not be his wife unless he puts all of Norway
+under him for my sake_"]
+
+So Guthorm and his men rode homeward across the country. They did not
+talk. They were all thinking. At last one said:
+
+"How shall we give this message to the king?"
+
+"I have been thinking of that," Guthorm said; "his anger is no little
+thing."
+
+It was late when they rode into the king's yard; for they had ridden
+slowly, trying to make some plan for softening the message, but they had
+thought of none.
+
+"I see light through the wind's-eyes of the feast hall," one said.
+
+"Yes, the king keeps feast," Guthorm said. "We must give our message
+before all his guests."
+
+So they went in with very heavy hearts. There sat King Harald in the
+high seat. The benches on both sides were full of men. The tables had
+been taken out, and the mead-horns were going round.
+
+"Oh, ho!" cried King Harald. "Our messengers! What news?"
+
+Then Guthorm said:
+
+"This Gyda is a bold and saucy girl, King Harald. My tongue refuses to
+give her message."
+
+The king stamped his foot.
+
+"Out with it!" he cried. "What does she say?"
+
+"She says that she will not marry so little a king," Guthorm answered.
+
+Harald jumped to his feet. His face flushed red. Guthorm stretched out
+his hand.
+
+"They are not my words, O King; they are the words of a silly girl."
+
+"Is there any more?" the king shouted. "Go on!"
+
+"She said: 'There is one king in Denmark and one king in Sweden. Is
+there no man brave enough to make himself king of all Norway? Tell King
+Harald that I will not marry him unless he puts all of Norway under him
+for my sake.'"
+
+The guests sat speechless, staring at Guthorm. All at once the king
+broke into a roar of laughter.
+
+"By the hammer of Thor!" he cried, "that is a good message. I thank you,
+Gyda. Did you hear it, friends? King of all Norway! Why, we are all
+stupids. Why did we not think of that?"
+
+Then he raised his horn high.
+
+"Now hear my vow. I say that I will not cut my hair or comb it until I
+am king of all Norway. That I will be or I will die."
+
+Then he drank off the horn of mead, and while he drank it, all the men
+in the hall stood up and waved their swords and shouted and shouted.
+That old hall in all its two hundred years of feasts had not heard such
+a noise before.
+
+"Ah, Harald!" Guthorm cried, "surely Thor in Valhalla smiled when he
+heard that vow."
+
+The men sat all night talking of that wonderful vow.
+
+On the very next day King Harald sent out his war-arrows. Soon a great
+army was gathered. They marched through the country north and south and
+east and west, burning houses and fighting battles as they went. People
+fled before them, some to their own kings, some inland to the deep woods
+and hid there. But some went to King Harald and said:
+
+"We will be your men."
+
+"Then take the oath, and I will be friends with you," he said.
+
+The men took off their swords and laid them down and came one by one and
+knelt before the king. They put their heads between his knees and said:
+
+"From this day, Harald Halfdanson, I am your man. I will serve you in
+war. For my land I will pay you taxes. I will be faithful to you as my
+king."
+
+Then Harald said:
+
+"I am your king, and I will be faithful to you."
+
+Many kings took that oath and thousands of common men. Of all the
+battles that Harald fought, he did not lose one.
+
+Now for a long time the king's hair and beard had not been combed or
+cut. They stood out around his head in a great bushy mat of yellow. At a
+feast one day when the jokes were going round, Harald's uncle said:
+
+"Harald, I will give you a new name. After this you shall be called
+Harald Shockhead. As my naming gift I give you this drinking-horn."
+
+"It is a good name," laughed all the men.
+
+After that all people called him Harald Shockhead.
+
+During these wars, whenever King Harald got a country for his own, this
+is what he did. He said:
+
+"All the marshland and the woodland where no people live is mine. For
+his farm every man shall pay me taxes."
+
+Over every country he put some brave, wise man and called him Earl. He
+said to the earls:
+
+"You shall collect the taxes and pay them to me. But some you shall keep
+for yourselves. You shall punish any man who steals or murders or does
+any wicked thing. When your people are in trouble they shall come to
+you, and you shall set the thing right. You must keep peace in the land.
+I will not have my people troubled with robber vikings."
+
+The earls did all these things as best they could; for they were good
+strong men. The farmers were happy. They said:
+
+"We can work on our farms with peace now. Before King Harald came,
+something was always wrong. The vikings would come and steal our gold
+and our grain and burn our houses, or the king would call us to war.
+Those little kings are always fighting. It is better under King Harald."
+
+But the chiefs, who liked to fight and go a-viking, hated King Harald
+and his new ways. One of these chiefs was Solfi. He was a king's son.
+Harald had killed his father in battle. Solfi had been in that battle.
+At the end of it he fled away with two hundred men and got into ships.
+
+"We will make that Shockhead smart," he said.
+
+So they harried the coast of King Harald's country. They filled their
+ships with gold. They ate other men's meals. They burned farmhouses
+behind them. The people cried out to the earls for help. So the earls
+had out their ships all the time trying to catch Solfi, but he was too
+clever for them.
+
+In the spring he went to a certain king, Audbiorn, and said to him:
+
+"Now, there are two things that we can do. We can become this Shockhead
+Harald's thralls, we can kneel before him and put our heads between his
+knees. Or else we can fight. My father thought it better to die in
+battle than to be any man's thrall. How is it? Will you join with my
+cousin Arnvid and me against this young Shockhead?"
+
+"Yes, I will do it," said the king.
+
+[Decoration]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[8] See note about foster-father on page 197.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The Sea Fight
+
+
+Many men felt as Solfi did. So when King Audbiorn and King Arnvid sent
+out their war arrows, a great host gathered. All men came by sea. Two
+hundred ships lay at anchor in the fiord, looking like strange swimming
+animals because of their high carved prows and bright paint. There were
+red and gold dragons with long necks and curved tails. Sea-horses reared
+out of the water. Green and gold snakes coiled up. Sea-hawks sat with
+spread wings ready to fly. And among all these curved necks stood up the
+tall, straight masts with the long yardarms swinging across them holding
+the looped-up sails.
+
+When the starting horn blew, and their sails were let down, it was like
+the spreading of hundreds of curious flags. Some were striped black and
+yellow or blue and gold. Some were white with a black raven or a brown
+bear embroidered on them, or blue with a white sea-hawk, or black with
+a gold sun. Some were edged with fur. As the wind filled the gaudy
+sails, and the ships moved off, the men waved their hands to the women
+on shore and sang:
+
+    "To the sea! To the sea!
+    The wind in our sail,
+    The sea in our face,
+    And the smell of the fight.
+    After ship meets ship,
+    In the quarrel of swords
+    King Harald shall lie
+    In the caves under sea
+    And Norsemen shall laugh."
+
+In the prow stood men leaning forward and sniffing the salt air with
+joy. Some were talking of King Harald.
+
+"Yesterday he had a hard fight," they said. "To-day he will be lying
+still, dressing his wounds and mending his ships. We shall take him by
+surprise."
+
+They sailed near the coast. Solfi in his "Sea-hawk" was ahead leading
+the way. Suddenly men saw his sail veer and his oars flash out. He had
+quickly turned his boat and was rowing back. He came close to King
+Arnvid and called:
+
+"He is there, ahead. His boats are ready in line of battle. The fox has
+not been asleep."
+
+King Arnvid blew his horn. Slowly his boats came into line with his
+"Sea-stag" in the middle. Again he blew his horn. Cables were thrown
+across from one prow to the next, and all the ships were tied together
+so that their sides touched. Then the men set their sails again and they
+went past a tongue of land into a broad fiord. There lay the long line
+of King Harald's ships with their fierce heads grinning and mocking at
+the newcomers. Back of those prows was what looked like a long wall with
+spots of green and red and blue and yellow and shining gold. It was the
+locked shields of the men in the bows, and over every shield looked
+fierce blue eyes. Higher up and farther back was another wall of
+shields; for on the half deck in the stern of every ship stood the
+captain with his shield-guard of a dozen men.
+
+Arnvid's people had furled their sails and were taking down the masts,
+but the ships were still drifting on with the wind. The horn blew, and
+quickly every man sprang to his place in bow and stern. All were leaning
+forward with clenched teeth and widespread nostrils. They were clutching
+their naked swords in their hands. Their flashing eyes looked over their
+shields.
+
+Soon King Arnvid's ships crashed into Harald's line, and immediately the
+men in the bows began to swing their swords at one another. The soldiers
+of the shield-guard on the high decks began to throw darts and stones
+and to shoot arrows into the ships opposite them.
+
+So in every ship showers of stones and arrows were falling, and many men
+died under them or got broken arms or legs. Spears were hurled from deck
+to deck and many of them bit deep into men's bodies. In every bow men
+slashed with their swords at the foes in the opposite ship. Some jumped
+upon the gunwale to get nearer or hung from the prow-head. Some even
+leaped into the enemy's boat.
+
+King Harald's ship lay prow to prow with King Arnvid's. The battle had
+been going on for an hour. King Harald was still in the stern on the
+deck. There was a dent in his helmet where a great stone had struck.
+There was a gash in his shoulder where a spear had cut. But he was still
+fighting and laughed as he worked.
+
+"Wolf meets wolf to-day," he said. "But things are going badly in the
+prow," he cried. "Ivar fallen, Thorstein wounded, a dozen men lying in
+the bottom of the boat!"
+
+He leaped down from the deck and ran along the gunwale, shouting as he
+went:
+
+"Harald and victory!"
+
+So he came to the bow and stood swinging his sword as fast as he
+breathed. Every time it hit a man of Arnvid's men. Harald's own warriors
+cheered, seeing him.
+
+"Harald and victory!" they shouted, and went to work again with good
+heart.
+
+Slowly King Arnvid's men fell back before Harald's biting sword. Then
+Harald's men threw a great hook into that boat and pulled it alongside
+and still pushed King Arnvid's people back.
+
+"Come on! Follow me!" cried Harald.
+
+Then he leaped into King Arnvid's boat, and his warriors followed him.
+
+"He comes like a mad wolf," King Arnvid's men said, and they turned and
+ran back below the deck.
+
+Then Arnvid himself leaped down and stood with his sword raised.
+
+"Can this young Shockhead make cowards of you all?" he cried.
+
+But Harald's sword struck him, and he fell dead. Then a big, bloody
+viking of King Arnvid leaped upon the edge of the ship and stood there.
+He held his drinking-horn and his sword high in his hands.
+
+"Ran[9] and not you, Shockhead, shall have them and me!" he cried, and
+leaped laughing into the water and was drowned.
+
+Many other warriors chose the same death on that terrible day.
+
+[Illustration: "_Then he leaped into King Arnvid's boat_"]
+
+All along the line of boats men fought for hours. In some places the
+cables had been cut, and the boats had drifted apart. Ships lay
+scattered about two by two, fighting. May boats sank, many men died,
+some fled away in their ships, and at the end King Harald had won the
+battle. So he had King Arnvid's country and King Audbiorn's country.
+Many men took the oath and became his friends. All people were talking
+of his wonderful battles.
+
+[Decoration]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[9] See note about Ran on page 198.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+King Harald's Wedding
+
+
+It had taken King Harald ten years to fight so many battles. And all
+that time he had not cut his hair or combed it. Now he was feasting one
+day at an earl's house. Many people were there.
+
+"How is it, friends?" Harald said. "Have I kept my vow?"
+
+His friends answered:
+
+"You have kept your vow. There is no king but you in all Norway."
+
+"Then I think I will cut my hair," the king laughed.
+
+So he went and bathed and put on fresh clothes. Then the earl cut his
+hair and beard and combed them and put a gold band about his head. Then
+he looked at him and said:
+
+"It is beautiful, smooth, and yellow."
+
+And all people wondered at the beauty of the king's hair.
+
+"I will give you a new name," the earl said. "You shall no longer be
+called Shockhead. You shall be called Harald Hairfair."
+
+"It is a good name," everybody cried.
+
+Then Harald said:
+
+"But I have another thing to do now. Guthorm, you shall take the same
+message to Gyda that you gave ten years ago."
+
+So Guthorm went and brought back this answer from Gyda:
+
+"I will marry the king of all Norway."
+
+So when the wedding time came, Harald rode across the country to the
+home of Gyda's father, Eric. Many men followed him. They were all richly
+dressed in velvet and gold.
+
+For three nights they feasted at Eric's house. On the next night Gyda
+sat on the cross-bench with her women. A long veil of white linen
+covered her face and head and hung down to the ground. After the
+mead-horns had been brought in, Eric stood up from his high seat and
+went down and stood before King Harald.
+
+"Will you marry Gyda now?" he asked.
+
+[Illustration: "_I, Harald, King of Norway, take you Gyda, for my
+wife_"]
+
+Harald jumped to his feet and laughed.
+
+"Yes," he said. "I have waited long enough."
+
+Then he stepped down from his high seat and stood by Eric. They walked
+about the hall. Before them walked thralls carrying candles. Behind them
+walked many of King Harald's great earls. Three times they walked around
+the hall. The third time they stopped before the cross-bench. King
+Harald and Eric stepped upon the platform, where the cross-bench was.
+
+Eric gave a holy hammer to Harald, and it was like the hammer of Thor.
+Harald put it upon Gyda's lap, saying:
+
+"With this holy hammer of Thor's, I, Harald, King of Norway, take you,
+Gyda, for my wife."
+
+Then he took a bunch of keys and tied it to Gyda's girdle, saying:
+
+"This is the sign that you are mistress of my house."
+
+After that, Eric called out loudly:
+
+"Now, are Harald, King of Norway, and Gyda, daughter of Eric, man and
+wife."
+
+Then thralls brought meat and drink in golden dishes. They were about to
+serve it to Gyda for the bride's feast, but Harald took the dish from
+them and said:
+
+"No, I will serve my bride."
+
+So he knelt and held the platter. When he did that his men shouted. Then
+they talked among themselves, saying:
+
+"Surely Harald never knelt before. It is always other people who kneel
+to him."
+
+When the bride had tasted the food and touched the mead-horn to her lips
+she stood up and walked from the hall. All her women followed her, but
+the men stayed and feasted long.
+
+On the next morning at breakfast Gyda sat by Harald's side. Soon the
+king rose and said:
+
+"Father-in-law, our horses stand ready in the yard. Work is waiting for
+me at home and on the sea. Lead out the bride."
+
+So Eric took Gyda by the hand and led her out of the hall. Harald
+followed close. When they passed through the door Eric said:
+
+"With this hand I lead my daughter out of my house and give her to you,
+Harald, son of Halfdan, to be your wife. May all the gods make you
+happy!"
+
+Harald led his bride to the horse and lifted her up and set her behind
+his saddle and said:
+
+"Now this Gyda is my wife."
+
+Then they drank the stirrup-horn and rode off.
+
+"Everything comes to King Harald," his men said; "wife and land and
+crown and victory in battle. He is a lucky man."
+
+[Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+King Harald Goes West-Over-Seas
+
+
+Now many men hated King Harald. Many a man said:
+
+"Why should he put himself up for king of all of us? He is no better
+than I am. Am I not a king's son as well as he? And are not many of us
+kings' sons? I will not kneel before him and promise to be his man. I
+will not pay him taxes. I will not have his earl sitting over me. The
+good old days have gone. This Norway has become a prison. I will go away
+and find some other place."
+
+So hundreds of men sailed away. Some went to France and got land and
+lived there. Big Rolf-go-afoot and all his men sailed up the great
+French River and won a battle against the French king himself. There was
+no way to stop the flashing of his battle-axes but to give him what he
+wanted. So the king made Rolf a duke, gave him broad lands and gave him
+the king's own daughter for wife. Rolf called his country Normandy, for
+old Norway. He ruled it well and was a great lord, and his sons' sons
+after him were kings of England.
+
+Other Norsemen went to Ireland and England and Scotland. They drew up
+their boats on the river banks. The people ran away before them and
+gathered into great armies that marched back to meet the vikings in
+battle. Sometimes the Norsemen lost, but oftener they won, so that they
+got land and lived in those countries. Their houses sat in these strange
+lands like warriors' camps, and the Norsemen went among their new
+neighbors with hanging swords and spears in hand, ever ready for fight.
+
+There are many islands north of Scotland. They are called the Orkneys
+and the Shetlands. They have many good harbors for ships. They are
+little and rocky and bare of trees. Wild sea-birds scream around them.
+On some of them a man can stand in the middle and see the ocean all
+about him. Now the vikings sailed to these islands and were pleased.
+
+[Illustration: "_In Norway they left burning houses and weeping
+women_"]
+
+"It is like being always in a boat," they said. "This shall be our
+home."
+
+So it went until all the lands round about were covered with vikings.
+Norse carved and painted houses brightened the hillsides. Viking ships
+sailed all the seas and made harbor in every river. Norsemen's thralls
+plowed the soil and planted crops and herded cattle, and gold flowed
+into their masters' treasure-chests. Norse warriors walked up and down
+the land, and no man dared to say them nay.
+
+These men did not forget Norway. In the summers they sailed back there
+and harried the coast. They took gold and grain and beautiful cloth back
+to their homes. In Norway they left burning houses and weeping women.
+
+Every summer King Harald had out his ships and men and hunted these
+vikings. There are many little islands about Norway. They have crags and
+caves and deep woods. Here the vikings hid when they saw King Harald's
+ships coming. But Harald ran his boat into every creek and fiord and
+hunted in every cave and through all the woods and among the crags. He
+caught many men, but most of them got away and went home laughing at
+Harald. Then they came back the next summer and did the same deeds over
+again. At last King Harald said:
+
+"There is but one thing to do. I must sail to these western islands and
+whip these robbers in their own homes."
+
+So he went with a great number of ships. He found as brave men as he had
+brought from Norway. These vikings had brought their old courage to
+their new homes. King Harald's fine ships were scarred by viking stones
+and scorched by viking fire. The shields of Harald's warriors had dents
+from viking blows. Many of those men carried viking scars all their
+lives. And many of King Harald's warriors walked the long, hard road to
+Valhalla, and feasted there with some of these very vikings that had
+died in King Harald's battles. But after many hard fights on land and
+sea, after many men had died and many had fled away to other lands, King
+Harald won, and he made the men that were yet in the islands take the
+oath, and he left his earls to rule over them. Then he went back to
+Norway.
+
+"He has done more than he vowed to do," people said. "He has not only
+whipped the vikings, but he has got a new kingdom west-over-seas."
+
+Then they talked of that dream that his mother had.
+
+"King Harald was that great tree," they said. "The trunk was red with
+the blood of his many battles, but higher up the limbs were fair and
+green like this good time of peace. The topmost branches were white
+because Harald will live to be an old man. Just as that tree spread out
+until all of Norway was in its shade, and even more lands, so Harald is
+king of all this country and of the western islands. The many branches
+of that tree are the many sons of Harald, who shall be earls and kings
+in Norway, and their sons after them, for hundreds of years."
+
+
+
+
+_PART II_
+
+[Illustration]
+
+WEST-OVER-SEAS
+
+
+[Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Homes in Iceland
+
+
+Men had been feasting in Ingolf's house. But there was no laughing and
+no shouting of jokes. Ingolf sat in his high seat frowning and gloomy.
+His head hung on his breast. He was staring into the fire. Now he raised
+his head and looked about the hall.
+
+"Comrades," he said, "what shall we do? Herstein and Holmstein died by
+our swords. Their kinsmen hunger to kill us. Besides, when Harald hears
+of our deed, there will not be a safe place in Norway for us. He will
+never let a man fight out an honest quarrel. Where shall we go?"
+
+A man stood up from the bench.
+
+"We have friends in the Shetlands," he said. "Let us find homes there."
+
+Then Leif, in the high seat opposite Ingolf, stood up.
+
+"No, not the Shetlands, my foster-brother.[10] They are crowded
+already. Besides, Harald will not long keep his hands off them. Then
+they will be no better than Norway. England and Ireland and Scotland are
+old. My eyes ache for something new. What of that far island that Floki
+found? It is empty. We could choose our land from the whole country.
+There is good fishing. There are green valleys. And Butter Thorolf says
+that butter drops from every weed. There are mountains and deserts where
+we may find adventure. I say, let us steer for Iceland!"
+
+When he stopped, many of the men shouted:
+
+"Yes! Iceland!"
+
+But an old man stood up.
+
+"We have all laughed at that tale of Butter Thorolf's," he said. "But
+Floki himself said that the sea about the island is full of ice that
+pushes upon the land, that no ship can live in that water in the winter,
+that great mountains of ice cover the island. Did not all his cattle die
+there of hunger and cold, and did he not come back to Norway cursing
+Iceland?"
+
+"Oh, Sighvat, you are old and fearful," called out Leif, and he laughed.
+
+Then he stretched himself up and threw back his head.
+
+"Are we afraid of ice? Have we not seen angry water before? I have been
+hungry, but I have never died of it. Surely if there are fish in the sea
+and grass in the valleys, we can live there. I should like to stand on a
+hill and look around on a wide land and think, 'This is all ours,' and
+out upon a rough sea and think, 'Far off there are our foes and they
+dare not come over to us.' Besides, we shall have no Shockhead Harald to
+lord it over us. We can come and go and feast and fight as we please. We
+shall be our own kings. And our ships will be always waiting to take us
+away, when we are weary of it. And we shall see things that other men
+have never seen. I am tired of the old things. Perhaps in after days men
+will make songs about 'those foster-brothers, Ingolf and Leif, who made
+a new country in a wonderful land, and whose sons and grandsons are
+mighty men in Iceland!'"
+
+Ingolf leaped up from his chair.
+
+"By the strong arm of Thor!" he cried, "I like the sound of it. Now I
+make my vow."
+
+He raised his drinking-horn.
+
+"I vow that I will find this Iceland and pass the winter there, and that
+if man can live upon it I will go back there and set up my home."
+
+"And I vow that I will follow my foster-brother," cried Leif.
+
+And many men vowed to go.
+
+So on the next day they began to make ready a boat. They looked her over
+carefully and recalked every seam and freshly painted her and put into
+her their strongest oars and made her a new sail.
+
+"This will be the longest voyage that she ever made," Ingolf said.
+
+When the work was done, they put into her great stores, axes, hammers,
+fish-nets, cooking-kettles, kegs of ale, chests of hard bread, chests of
+smoked meat, brass kettles full of flour, skin bottles of water. They
+stowed these things away in the ends of the ship. When they were ready
+they put in four head of cattle.
+
+"We shall need the milk and perhaps the meat," Ingolf said.
+
+Many men wished to go, but Ingolf had said:
+
+"There is little room to spare and little food and drink. I have planned
+for half a year. But perhaps we must be sailing longer than that. Our
+food may run short. We must not have extra mouths to feed. There are
+thirty oars in our boat. I will take only one man for every oar, and
+Leif and I will steer."
+
+So they started off. Leif stood in the prow leaning forward and looking
+far ahead, and he sang:
+
+    "What does the swimming dragon smell?
+    A stormy sea, an empty land,
+    Hunger, darkness, giants, fire.
+    Leif and his sword do laugh at that."
+
+They sailed for days and saw no land. Sometimes they passed ships and
+always made sure to sail close enough to hail them.
+
+"Where are you going?" Ingolf would call.
+
+"To Norway," would come back the answer.
+
+"For trade or fight?" Leif would shout.
+
+Then would ring out a great laugh from that boat and this answer:
+
+"A shut mouth is a good friend."
+
+So the two ships sailed on, and the men were glad to have heard a
+greeting and to have called one.
+
+But at last there were the Shetlands.
+
+"We will go in here and rest," Ingolf said.
+
+When they rowed to shore a certain Shetland man stood there. He watched
+them land and looked them all over. Then he walked up to Ingolf and
+said:
+
+"You look like brave men. Welcome to Shetland. You shall come to my
+house and rest your legs from ship-going and fill your stomachs. I
+hunger for news of Norway."
+
+So they went to his house and stayed there for three days. And good it
+seemed to be near a fire and in a quiet bed and before a steaming
+platter. When they went to the shore to start off again, the Shetland
+man had his thralls carry a keg of ale and a great kettle of cooked meat
+and put them into the ship.
+
+"Think of me when you eat this," he said.
+
+Then the Norsemen put to sea again and sailed for a long time.
+
+One day a terrible storm came up; the sky was black; the wind howled
+through the ship. Great waves leaped in the sea.
+
+"Down with the sail and out with the oars!" Ingolf shouted.
+
+So the men furled the sail and took down the mast and laid it along the
+bottom of the boat. As they worked, one man was washed overboard and
+drowned. The men sat down to row, but the tumbling waves tossed the boat
+about and poured over her and broke three of the oars. But still the men
+held on. They were wet to the skin and were cold, and their arms and
+legs ached with the hard work, and they were hungry from the long
+waiting, but not one face was white with fear.
+
+"Ran, in her caves under sea, wants us for company to-night," Ingolf
+laughed.
+
+So they tossed about all night, but in the morning the wind died down.
+Great waves still rolled, and for days the sea was rough, but they
+could put up the sail. Then one day Leif, as he sat in the pilot's seat,
+jumped to his feet and sang:
+
+    "To eyes grown tired with looking far,
+    All at once appeared an island,
+    A stretching-place for sea-legs,
+    A quiet bed for backs grown stiff
+    On rowing-bench on rolling sea.
+    A place to build a red fire
+    And thaw the blood that sea-winds froze."
+
+But when they came near they saw no place to land. The island was like a
+mountain of rock standing out of the water. The sides were steep and
+smooth. They sailed around it, but found no place to climb up.
+
+"There are many other islands here," said Leif. "We will try another."
+
+So he steered to another. It, too, was a steep rock, but one side sloped
+down to the water and was green with grass.
+
+"Oh, I have not seen anything so good as that green grass since I looked
+into my mother's face," one man said.
+
+There was a little harbor there. The men rowed in and quickly jumped out
+and put the rollers under the ship and pulled her upon shore. Then they
+threw themselves down on the grass and rolled and stretched their arms
+and shouted for joy. After that they built a fire and warmed themselves
+and cooked a meal and ate like wolves. They slept there that night.
+
+In the morning before Ingolf's men started away they were standing high
+up on the hillside, looking about. They saw no houses on any of the
+islands, but they saw smoke rise from one hillside.
+
+"Some other men, like us, weary of the sea and stopping to rest," said
+Ingolf.
+
+They saw the island that they had sailed around the night before.
+
+"There can surely be nothing but birds' nests on top of that," Sighvat
+said.
+
+"Look!" cried another, pointing.
+
+Men were standing on the flat top of that island. They were letting a
+boat down the steep side with ropes. When it struck the water, they made
+a rope fast to the rock and slid down it into the ship and sailed off.
+
+"Some robber vikings from Scotland or Ireland," laughed Leif. "It is a
+good hiding place for treasure."
+
+Soon Ingolf and his men got into their ship and were off. Old Sighvat
+grumbled.
+
+"Is this land not new enough and empty enough and far enough? I am tired
+of sea, sea, sea, and nothing else."
+
+"We started for Iceland," said Ingolf, "and I will not stop before I
+come there. I have a vow. Did you make none, Sighvat?"
+
+Then they were on the water again for weeks with no sight of land.
+
+"Oh! I would give my right hand to see a dragon pawing the water off
+there and to fling a word to its men," Sighvat said.
+
+"No hope of that," replied Ingolf. "Only three dragons before ours have
+ever swept this water, and men are not sailing this way for pleasure or
+riches."
+
+So only the desolate sea stretched around them. Sometimes it was smooth
+and shining under the sun. Often it was torn by winds, and a gray sky
+hung over it, and the men were drenched with rain. Once they ran into a
+fog. For three days and nights they could not see sun or stars to steer
+by. They forgot which way was north. When after three days the fog
+lifted, they found that they had been going in the wrong direction, and
+they had to turn around and sail all that weary way over again. But at
+last one afternoon they saw a white cloud resting on the water far off.
+As they sailed toward it, it grew into long stretches of black, hilly
+shore with a blue ice mountain rising from it. The sun was going down
+behind that mountain, and long lines of pink and of shining green, and
+great purple shadows streaked the blue.
+
+"It is Iceland!" shouted the men.
+
+"It is like Asgard the Shining," Ingolf said.
+
+But it was still far off. Men can see a long way there because the air
+is so clear. So Ingolf and his people sailed on for hours and at last
+came into a harbor. A little green valley sloped up from it. On one side
+was the bright ice mountain. Back of it were bare black and red hills.
+In that valley Ingolf and his men drew up their boat and camped. At
+supper that night one of the men said:
+
+"I almost think I never felt a fire before or had warm food in my
+mouth."
+
+The men laughed.
+
+"It is four months since we left Norway," Ingolf said. "Few men have
+ever been on the sea so long."
+
+That night they put up the awning in the boat and slept under it.
+
+After that some men went fishing every day in the rowboat that they had.
+And Ingolf took others, and they sailed along the shore, seeing what
+kind of a land this was. But winter began to come on. Then Ingolf said:
+
+"Remember what Floki said of the ice and the rough sea in winter. Soon
+we cannot sail any longer. Let us choose a place to stay and build a hut
+there and cut hay for our cattle."
+
+So they did. Their hut was a little mean thing of stones and turf. They
+kept the cattle and the hay in it. Sometimes they slept there, when it
+was very cold. But most of the time they ate and slept by a great
+bonfire out of doors where it was clean. Leif said:
+
+"I like the cold air of the sea better than the bad-smelling air of a
+house, even though it is warm."
+
+Now every day Ingolf and Leif and some of the men walked about the
+island. At night they all sat around the campfire and talked of what
+they had seen during the day.
+
+"This is surely a wonderful land," Ingolf said once. "It is at the same
+time like Niflheim and like Asgard. Here is a spot green and soft, a
+sweet cradle for men. Next it is a mountain of ice where men would
+freeze to death. And next to that is a hill of rock that seems to have
+come out of some great fire. Yesterday I saw a cave on the seashore. The
+door of it was big enough for a giant. The waves broke at the doorstep.
+A terrible roaring came from the cave. I think it is the home of a
+giant. I think that giants of fire and giants of frost made this island.
+I have seen great basins in the rocks filled with warm water. They
+looked like giants' bath-tubs. I have seen boiling water shoot up out of
+the ground. I have walked, and have felt and heard a great rumbling
+under me as though some giant were sleeping there and turning over in
+his sleep. One day I stood on a mountain and looked inland. There was a
+wide desert of sand and black and red rock with nothing growing on it.
+The fierce wind blew dirt into my eyes, and the cold of it froze the
+marrow in my bones. When I have seen these things I have cursed the
+country, and have said: 'The gods hate Iceland. I will not stay here.'
+But then I have walked through beautiful warm valleys where the winds
+did not come. I saw in my mind the flowers that we found last summer. I
+saw our cattle feeding on the sweet grass. I thought of the sea full of
+good fish. I saw my house built among green fields, and my wife sitting
+in her home, and my children playing among the flowers and making up
+tales about the bright ice mountains. I saw the wide, rough seas between
+me and Harald and our foes. Then I thought to myself, 'It is the
+sweetest home on earth.' As for me, I am coming here to live. What do
+you say, comrades?"
+
+"Have I not vowed to follow you, foster-brother?" said Leif. "And indeed
+I never saw a land that I liked better. I don't believe in your giants.
+My sword is my god, and my ship is my temple, and I like this land to
+set them up in."
+
+They sat about the fire long that night making plans.
+
+"You shall go home and get our women and our things, Ingolf," said Leif.
+"I will off to Ireland and have a frolic. There will be little play of
+swords in this empty land, and I want to have one last game before I
+hang up my battle-knife. Besides, I will come to you with a ship full of
+gold and clothes and house-hangings such as we cannot get here, and they
+will cost me nothing but the swing of a sword."
+
+As they talked, Ingolf looked up at the sky. The northern lights were
+quivering there. They were like great flames of yellow and green and
+red.
+
+"See," he said, and pointed. "We are not so far that the gods will
+forget us. There is the flash of the armor of the Valkyrias.[11] A
+battle is on somewhere, and Odin has sent his maidens to choose the
+heroes for Valhalla."
+
+Leif only laughed and lay down to sleep.
+
+So in the spring they all went back to Norway. Leif got ready the boat
+again and merrily sailed for Ireland.
+
+"Here I go to get riches for our new land," he said.
+
+Ingolf set his men to cutting down pines in the forest and some to
+building a new ship. He had his thralls plant large crops of grain and
+grind flour and make new kegs and chests of wood. He himself worked much
+at the forge, making all kinds of tools--spades, axes, hammers,
+hunting-knives, cooking kettles. The women were busy weaving and sewing
+new clothes. Ingolf sold his house and land and everything that he could
+not take with him.
+
+After about two years Leif came back. He had ten thralls that he had got
+in Ireland. He took Ingolf aboard his ship and raised the covers of
+great chests. Gold helmets, silver-trimmed drinking-horns, embroidered
+robes, and swords flashed out.
+
+"Did I not say that I would come back with a full ship?" he laughed.
+
+At last all things were ready for starting.
+
+"To-day I will sacrifice to Thor and Odin," Ingolf said. "If the omens
+are good we will start to-morrow."
+
+"Well, go, foster-brother," laughed Leif. "But I have better things to
+do. I will be putting the cattle into the ship and will have all ready."
+
+So Ingolf and his men went into the forests a little way. There in a
+cleared space stood a large building. In front of this temple the men
+killed two horses for Odin. Ingolf caught some of the blood in a brass
+bowl. He raised it and looked up at the sky and said:
+
+"All-wise and all-father Odin, and Thor who loves the thunder, I give
+these horses to you. Tell me whether it is your will that we go to
+Iceland."
+
+As he said that, a raven flew over his head. Ingolf watched it.
+
+"It is Odin's will that we go," he said. "He sent his raven[12] to tell
+us. It is flying straight toward Iceland."
+
+The men shouted with joy at that.
+
+Now they hung some of the meat of the horses on a tree near the temple.
+
+"For the ravens of Odin," they said.
+
+Ingolf carried the bowl of blood into the temple. He went through the
+feast hall in front to a little room at the back. Here stood wooden
+statues of the gods in a semicircle. Before them was a stone altar.
+Ingolf took a little brush of twigs that lay on it and dipped it into
+the blood and sprinkled the statues.
+
+"You shall taste of our sacrifice," he said. "Look kindly on us from
+your happy seats in Asgard."
+
+Then they went into the feast hall. There thralls were boiling the
+horseflesh in pots over the fire. The tables were standing ready before
+the benches. Ingolf walked to the high seat. All the others took their
+places at the benches. When the horns came round, Ingolf made this vow:
+
+"I vow that I will build my house wherever these pillars lead me."
+
+He put his hand upon a tall post that stood beside the high seat. There
+was one at each side. They were the front posts of the chair. But they
+stood up high, almost to the roof. They were wonderfully carved and
+painted with men and dragons. On the top of each one was a little
+statue of Thor with his hammer.
+
+At the end of the feast Ingolf had his thralls dig these pillars up. He
+had a little bronze chest filled with the earth that was under the
+altar.
+
+"I will take the pillars of my high seat to Iceland," he said, "and I
+will set up my altar there upon the soil of Norway, the soil that all my
+ancestors have trod, the soil that Thor loves."
+
+So they carried the pillars and the chest of earth and the statues of
+the gods, and put them into Ingolf's boat.
+
+"It is a well-packed ship," the men said. "There is no spot to spare."
+
+Tools, and chests of food, and tubs of drink, and chests of clothes, and
+fishing nets were stowed in the bows of both boats. In the bottom were
+laid some long, heavy, hewn logs.
+
+"The trees in Iceland are little," Ingolf said. "We must take the great
+beams for our homes with us."
+
+Standing on these logs were a few cattle and sheep and horses and pigs.
+The rowers' benches were along the sides. In the stern of each boat was
+a little cabin. Here the women and children were to sleep. But the men
+would sleep on the timbers in the middle of the boat and perhaps they
+would put up the awning sometimes.
+
+At last everyone was aboard. Men loosed the rope that held the boats.
+The ships flashed down the rollers into the water, and Ingolf and Leif
+were off for Iceland. As they sailed away everyone looked back at the
+shore of old Norway. There were tears in the women's eyes. Helga, Leif's
+wife, sang:
+
+    "There was I born. There was I wed.
+    There are my father's bones.
+    There are the hills and fields,
+    The streams and rocks that I love.
+    There are houses and temples,
+    Women and warriors and feasts,
+    Ships and songs and fights--
+    A crowded, joyous land.
+    I go to an empty land."
+
+There was the same long voyage with storm and fog. But at last the
+people saw again the white cloud and saw it growing into land and
+mountains. Then Ingolf took the pillars of his high seat and threw them
+overboard.
+
+"Guide them to a good place, O Thor!" he cried.
+
+The waves caught them up and rolled them about. Ingolf followed them
+with his ship. But soon a storm came up. The men had to take down the
+sails and masts, and they could do nothing with their oars. The two
+ships tossed about in the sea wherever the waves sent them. The pillars
+drifted away, and Ingolf could not see them.
+
+"Remember your pillars, O Thor!" he cried.
+
+Then he saw that Leif's ship was being driven far off.
+
+"Ah, my foster-brother," he thought, "shall I not have you to cheer me
+in this empty land? O Thor, let him not go down to the caves of Ran! He
+is too good a man for that."
+
+On the next day the storm was not so hard, and Ingolf put in at a good
+harbor. A high rocky point stuck out into the sea. A broad bay with
+islands in the mouth was at the side. Behind the rocky point was a
+level green place with ice-mountains shining far back.
+
+After a day or two Ingolf said:
+
+"I will go look for my pillars."
+
+So he and a few men got into the rowboat and went along the shore and
+into all the fiords, but they could not find the pillars. After a week
+they came back, and Ingolf said:
+
+"I will build a house here to live in while I look for the posts. This
+way is uncomfortable for the women."
+
+So he did. Then he set out again to look for the pillars, but he had no
+better luck and came back.
+
+"I must stay at home and see to the making of hay and the drying of
+fish," he said. "Winter is coming on, and we must not be caught with
+nothing to eat."
+
+So he stayed and worked and sent two of his thralls to look for the holy
+posts. They came back every week or two and always had to say that they
+had not found them. Midwinter was coming on.
+
+[Illustration: "_Then he saw that Leif's ship was being driven afar
+off_"]
+
+"Ah!" said Ingolf's wife one day, "do you remember the gay feast that we
+had at Yule-time? All our friends were there. The house rang with song
+and laughter. Our tables bent with good things to eat. Walls were hung
+with gay draperies. The floor was clean with sweet-smelling
+pine-branches. Now look at this mean house; its dirt floor, its bare
+stone walls, its littleness, its darkness! Look at our long faces. No
+one here could make a song if he tried. Oh! I am sick for dear old
+Norway."
+
+"It is Thor's fault," Ingolf cried. "He will not let me find his posts."
+
+He strode out of the house and stood scowling at the gray sea.
+
+"Ah, foster-brother!" he said. "It was never so gloomy when you were by
+my side. Where are you now? Shall I never hear your merry laugh again?
+That spot in my palm burns, and my heart aches to see you. That arch of
+sod keeps rising before my eyes. Our vows keep ringing in my ears."
+
+At last the long, gloomy winter passed and spring came.
+
+"Cheer up, good wife," Ingolf said. "Better days are coming now."
+
+But that same day the thralls came back from looking for the posts.
+
+"We have bad news," they said. "As we walked along the shore looking for
+the pillars we saw a man lying on the shore. We went up to him. He was
+dead. It was Leif. Two well-built houses stood near. We went to them. We
+knew from the carving on the door-posts that they were Leif's. We went
+in. The rooms were empty. Along the shore and in the wood back of the
+house we found all of his men, dead. There was no living thing about."
+
+Ingolf said no word, but his face was white, and his mouth was set. He
+went into the house and got his spears and his shield and said to his
+men:
+
+"Follow me."
+
+They put provisions into the boat and pushed off and sailed until they
+saw Leif's houses on the shore of the harbor. There they saw Leif and
+the men who were his friends, dead. Their swords and spears were gone.
+Ingolf walked through the houses calling on Helga and on the thralls,
+but no one answered. The storehouse was empty. The rich hangings were
+gone from the walls of the houses. There was nothing in the stables. The
+boat was gone.
+
+Ingolf went out and stood on a high point of land that jutted out into
+the water. Far along the coast he saw some little islands. He turned to
+his men and said:
+
+"The thralls have done it. I think we shall find them on those islands."
+
+Then he went back to Leif and stood looking at him.
+
+"What a shame for so brave a man to fall by the hands of thralls! But I
+have found that such things always happen to men who do not sacrifice to
+the gods. Ah, Leif! I did not think when we made those vows of
+foster-brotherhood that this would ever happen. But do not fear. I
+remember my promise. I had thought that a man's blood is precious in
+this empty land, but my vow is more precious."
+
+Now they laid all those men together and tied on their hell-shoes.
+
+"I need my sword for your sake, foster-brother. I cannot give you that.
+But you shall have my spears and my drinking-horn," said Ingolf. "For
+surely Odin has chosen you for Valhalla, even though you did not
+sacrifice. You are too good a man to go to Niflheim. You would make
+times merry in Valhalla."
+
+So Ingolf put his spears and his drinking-horn by Leif. Then the men
+raised a great mound over all the dead. After that they went aboard
+their boat and sailed for the islands that Ingolf had seen. It was
+evening when they reached them.
+
+"I see smoke rising from that one," Ingolf said, pointing.
+
+He steered for it. It was a steep rock like that one in the Faroes, but
+they found a harbor and landed and climbed the steep hill and came out
+on top. They saw the ten thralls sitting about a bonfire eating. Helga
+and the other women from Leif's house sat near, huddled together, white
+and frightened. One of the thralls gave a great laugh and shouted:
+
+"This is better than pulling Leif's plow. To-morrow we will sail for
+Ireland with all his wealth."
+
+"To-morrow you will be freezing in Niflheim," cried Ingolf, and he
+leaped among them swinging his sword, and all his men followed him, and
+they killed those thralls.
+
+Then Ingolf turned to Helga. She threw herself into his arms and wept.
+But after a while she told him this story:
+
+"When springtime came, Leif thought that he would sow wheat. He had but
+one ox. The others had died during the winter. So he set the thralls to
+help pull the plow. I saw their sour looks and was afraid, but Leif only
+laughed:
+
+"'What else can thralls expect?' he said. 'Never fear them, good wife.'
+
+"Now one day soon after that the thralls came running to the house
+calling out:
+
+"'The ox is dead! The ox is dead!'
+
+"Leif asked them about it. They said that a bear had come out of the
+woods and killed it, and that they had scared the beast away. They
+pointed out where it had gone. Then Leif called his men and said:
+
+"'A hunt! I had not hoped for such great sport here. Ah, we will have a
+feast off that bear!'
+
+"So they took their spears and went out into the woods. As soon as they
+were gone, the thralls came running into the house and took down all the
+swords and shields from the wall and ran out. In some way they met my
+lord and his men in the woods and killed them. Then they came back and
+took everything in the house and dragged us to the boat and sailed
+here."
+
+"O my brother!" said Ingolf, "where is that song about 'those two
+foster-brothers, Ingolf and Leif, who made a new country in a wonderful
+land, and whose sons and grandsons are mighty men in Iceland'? But come
+home with me, Helga."
+
+So they took the women and Leif's things and Leif's boat and sailed
+home. The next day after they came to Ingolf's house, Helga said:
+
+"We have made your family larger, brother Ingolf. Will you not take
+Leif's two houses and live in them? He does not need them now. He would
+like you to have them."
+
+"It would be pleasant to live there," Ingolf said. "I thank you."
+
+So the next day they loaded everything aboard the two ships and sailed
+for Leif's house. There they stayed for a year. Ingolf still sent his
+thralls out to look for the pillars. He was careful always to have hay,
+so his cattle prospered. That spring he planted wheat, but it did not
+grow well.
+
+"This is sickly stuff," Ingolf said. "It takes too much time and work.
+It is better to save the land for hay. Perhaps we can sometime go back
+to Norway for flour."
+
+At last one day the thralls came home and said:
+
+"We have found the pillars."
+
+Ingolf jumped to his feet. He cried out:
+
+"You have kept me waiting three years, Thor. But as soon as my house and
+temple are built, I will sacrifice to you three horses as a
+thank-offering."
+
+"It is a long way off, master," the thralls said, "and we have found
+much better places in our walks about the island."
+
+"Thor knows best," Ingolf answered. "I will settle where he leads me."
+
+So that summer they loaded everything into the ships again and sailed
+west along the coast until they came to the place where the pillars
+were. The land there was low and green. On both sides were low hills. A
+little lake glistened back from shore. In the valley were hot springs,
+with steam rising from them.
+
+"It looks like smoke," the men said. "It is very strange to see hot
+water and smoke come out of the ground."
+
+In front of this green land was a good harbor with islands in it. Far
+over the sea toward the north shone a great ice-mountain.
+
+"I like the place," Ingolf said. "I will make this land mine."
+
+So he built fires at the mouth of the river near there, and stood by
+them and called out loudly:
+
+"I have put my fire at the mouth of these rivers. All the land that they
+drain is mine, and no man shall claim it but me. I will call this place
+Reykjavik."[13]
+
+Then Ingolf built his feast hall. He himself carved the beams and the
+door-posts. Gaily painted dragons leaned out from the doors and stood up
+from the gables. Men and animals fought on the door-posts. For the doors
+he made at the forge great iron hinges. Their ends curved and spread all
+over the door. Near his feast hall he built a storehouse and a kitchen
+and a smithy and a stable and a bower for the women.
+
+"We do not need a sleeping-house for guests," he said. "Who would be our
+guests?"
+
+He roofed all his buildings with turf. It made them look like green
+mounds with gay carved and painted walls under them. He built also a
+temple, and on that was beautiful carving. In this he set up those
+statues that had been in his old temple. He put up, too, those pillars
+of his high seat that had been drifting about so long. Under them he
+laid the soil of Norway that he had brought in the little bronze chest.
+
+"I have kept my vow, O Thor!" he cried.
+
+Then he sacrificed three horses that he had promised to Thor. After that
+was over, he said:
+
+"Here is a good field for sport. Let us have some of the old games that
+we used to play at home. Who will wrestle with me?"
+
+So they wrestled there and ran races and swam in the water. The women
+sat and looked on.
+
+"Oh, this is good to see!" Helga cried. "We are as gay as we used to be
+in old Norway."
+
+But it was not many weeks before Ingolf said:
+
+"I wish that I might sometime see sails in that harbor. I wish that I
+might think, 'Around this point of land is another farm, and across the
+bay is another. I can go there when I am very lonely.' I wish that I
+might sometime be invited to a feast. I wish that I might sometimes hear
+the good, clanging music of weapons at play. It is a good land, but we
+have lived alone for four years. I am hungry for new faces and for
+tidings of Norway."
+
+One night as he and his men sat about the long fire in the feast hall, a
+servant threw a great piece of wood upon the fire. It was streaked with
+faded paint and it showed bits of carving.
+
+"See," said Ingolf, pointing to it, "see what is left of a good ship's
+prow! What lands have you seen, O dragon's head? What battles have you
+fought? What was your master's name? Where did the storm meet you?
+Perhaps he was coming to Iceland, comrades. Would it not have been
+pleasant to see his sail and to shake his hand and to welcome him to
+Iceland? But instead he is in Ran's caves, and only his broken prow has
+drifted here."
+
+Now it was not many months after that when one of the men came running
+into the feast hall, shouting:
+
+"A sail! a sail in the harbor!"
+
+All those men gave a shout with no word in it, as though their hearts
+had leaped into their throats. They jumped up and ran to the shore and
+stood there with hungry eyes. When the men landed, those Icelanders
+clapped them on the shoulders, and tears ran down their faces. For a
+long time they could say nothing but "Welcome! Welcome!"
+
+[Illustration: "_Those Icelanders clapped them on the shoulders_"]
+
+But after a while Ingolf led them to the feast hall and had a feast
+spread at once. While the thralls were at work, the men stood together
+and talked. Such a noise had never been in that hall before.
+
+"We have already built our fires and claimed our land up the shore a
+way," the leader said. "Men in Norway talk much of Ingolf and Leif, and
+wonder what has happened to them."
+
+Then Ingolf told them of all that had come to pass in Iceland; and then
+he asked of Norway.
+
+"Ah! things are going from bad to worse," the newcomers said. "Harald
+grows mightier every day. A man dare not swing a sword now except for
+the king. We came here to get away from him. Many men are talking of
+Iceland. Soon the sea-road between here and Norway will be swarming with
+dragons."
+
+And so it was. Ships also came from Ireland and from the Shetlands and
+the Orkneys.
+
+"Harald has come west-over-seas," the men of these ships said, "and has
+laid his heavy hand upon the islands and put his earls over them. They
+are no place now for free men."
+
+So by the time Ingolf was an old man, Iceland was no longer an empty
+land. Every valley was spotted with bright feast halls and temples.
+Horses and cattle pastured on the hillsides. Smoke curled up from
+kitchens and smithies. Gay ships sailed the waters, taking Iceland cloth
+and wool and Iceland fish and oil and the soft feathers of Iceland birds
+to Norway to sell, and bringing back wood and flour and grain.
+
+When Ingolf died, his men drew up on the shore the boat in which he had
+come to Iceland. They painted it freshly and put new gold on it, so that
+it stood there a glittering dragon with head raised high, looking over
+the water. Old Sighvat lifted a huge stone and carried it to the ship's
+side. With all his strength he threw it into the bottom. The timbers
+cracked.
+
+"If this ship moves from here," he said, "then I do not know how to moor
+a ship. It is Ingolf's grave."
+
+Then men laid Ingolf upon his shield and carried him and placed him on
+the high deck in the stern near the pilot's seat where he had sat to
+steer to Iceland. They hung his sword over his shoulder. They laid his
+spear by his side. In his hand they put his mead-horn. Into the ship
+they set a great treasure-chest filled with beautiful clothes and
+bracelets and head-bands. Beside the treasure-chest they piled up many
+swords and spears and shields. They put gold-trimmed saddles and bridles
+upon three horses. Then they killed the horses and dragged them into the
+ship. They killed hunting-dogs and put them by the horses; for they
+said:
+
+"All these things Ingolf will need in Valhalla. When he walks through
+the door of that feast hall, Odin must know that a rich and brave man
+comes. When he fights with those heroes during the day, he must have
+weapons worthy of him. He must have dogs for the hunt. When he feasts
+with those heroes at night he must wear rich clothes, so that those
+feasters shall know that he was a wealthy man and generous, and that his
+friends loved him."
+
+Ingolf's son tied on his hell-shoes for the long journey.
+
+"If these shoes come untied," he said, "I do not know how to fasten
+hell-shoes."
+
+Then he went out of the ship and stood on the ground with his family.
+All the men of Iceland were there.
+
+"This is a glorious sight," they said. "Surely no ship ever carried a
+richer load. Inside and out the boat blazes with gold and bronze, and,
+high over his riches, lies the great Ingolf, ready to take the tiller
+and guide to Valhalla, where all the heroes will rise up and shout him
+welcome."
+
+Then the thralls heaped a mound of earth over the ship. This hill stood
+up against the sky and seemed to say: "Here lies a great man." Sighvat
+put a stone on the top, with runes on it telling whose grave it was.
+All this time a skald stood by and played on his harp and sang a song
+about that time when Ingolf came to Iceland. He called him the father of
+Iceland. People of that country still read an old story that the men of
+that long ago time wrote about Ingolf, and they love him because he was
+a brave man and "the first of men to come to Iceland."
+
+[Decoration]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[10] See note about foster-brothers on page 197.
+
+[11] See note about Valkyrias on page 198.
+
+[12] See note about Odin's ravens on page 198.
+
+[13] See note about Reykjavik on page 199.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Eric the Red
+
+
+It was a spring day many years after Ingolf died. All the freemen in the
+west of Iceland had come to a meeting. Here they made laws and punished
+men for having done wrong. The meeting was over now. Men were walking
+about the plain and talking. Everybody seemed much excited. Voices were
+loud, arms were swinging.
+
+"It was an unjust decision," some one cried. "Eric killed the men in
+fair fight. The judges outlawed him because they were afraid. His foe
+Thorgest has many rich and powerful men to back him."
+
+"No, no!" said another. "Eric is a bloody man. I am glad he is out of
+Iceland."
+
+Just then a big man with bushy red hair and beard stalked through the
+crowd. He looked straight ahead and scowled.
+
+"There he goes," people said, and turned to look after him.
+
+"His hands are as red as his beard," some said, and frowned.
+
+But others looked at him and smiled, saying:
+
+"He walks like Thor the Fearless."
+
+"His story would make a fine song," one said. "As strong and as brave
+and as red as Thor! Always in a quarrel. A man of many places--Norway,
+the north of Iceland, the west of Iceland, those little islands off the
+shore of Iceland. Outlawed from all of them on account of his quarrels.
+Where will he go now, I wonder?"
+
+This Eric strode down to the shore with his men following.
+
+"He is in a black temper," they said. "We should best not talk to him."
+
+So they made ready the boat in silence. Eric got into the pilot's seat
+and they sailed off. Soon they pulled the ship up on their own shore.
+Eric strolled into his house and called for supper. When the
+drinking-horns had been filled and emptied, Eric pulled himself up and
+smiled and shouted out so that the great room was full of his big
+voice:
+
+"There is no friend like mead. It always cheers a man's heart."
+
+[Illustration: "_He looked straight ahead of him and scowled_"]
+
+Then laughter and talking began in the hall because Eric's good temper
+had come back. After a while Eric said:
+
+"Well, I must off somewhere. I have been driven about from place to
+place, like a seabird in a storm. And there is always a storm about me.
+It is my sword's fault. She is ever itching to break her peace-bands[14]
+and be out and at the play. She has shut Norway to me and now Iceland.
+Where will you go next, old comrade?" and he pulled out his sword and
+looked at it and smiled as the fire flashed on it.
+
+"There are some of us who will follow you wherever you go, Eric," called
+a man from across the fire.
+
+"Is it so?" Eric cried, leaping up. "Oh! then we shall have some merry
+times yet. Who will go with me?"
+
+More than half the men in the hall jumped to their feet and waved their
+drinking-horns and shouted:
+
+"I! I!"
+
+[Illustration: "_More than half the men in the hall jumped to their
+feet_"]
+
+Eric sat down in his chair and laughed.
+
+"O you bloody birds of battle!" he cried. "Ever hungry for new frolic!
+Our swords are sisters in blood, and we are brothers in adventure. Do
+you know what is in my heart to do?"
+
+He jumped to his feet, and his face glowed. Then he laughed as he looked
+at his men.
+
+"I see the answer flashing from your eyes," he said, "that you will do
+it even if it is to go down to Niflheim and drag up Hela, the pale queen
+of the stiff dead."
+
+His men pounded on the tables and shouted:
+
+"Yes! Yes! Anywhere behind Eric!"
+
+"But it is not to Niflheim," Eric laughed. "Did you ever hear that story
+that Gunnbiorn told? He was sailing for Iceland, but the fog came down,
+and then the wind caught him and blew him far off. While he drifted
+about he saw a strange land that rose up white and shining out of a blue
+sea. Huge ships of ice sailed out from it and met him. I mean to sail to
+that land."
+
+A great shout went up that shook the rafters. Then the men sat and
+talked over plans. While they sat, a stranger came into the hall.
+
+"I have no time to drink," he said. "I have a message from your friend
+Eyjolf. He says that Thorgest with all his men means to come here and
+catch you to-night. Eyjolf bids you come to him, and he will hide you
+until you are ready to start; for he loves you."
+
+"Hunted like a wolf from corner to corner of the world!" Eric cried
+angrily. "Will they not even let me finish one feast?"
+
+Then he laughed.
+
+"But if I take my sport like a wolf, I must be hunted like one. So we
+shall sleep to-night in the woods about Eyjolf's house, comrades,
+instead of in these good beds. Well, we have done it before."
+
+"And it is no bad place," cried some of the men.
+
+"I always liked the stars better than a smoky house fire," said one.
+
+"Can no bad fortune spoil your good nature?" laughed Eric. "But now we
+are off. Let every man carry what he can."
+
+So they quickly loaded themselves with clothes and gold and swords and
+spears and kettles of food. Eric led his wife Thorhild and his two young
+sons, Thorstein and Leif. All together they got into the boat and went
+to Eyjolf's farm. For a week or more they stayed in his woods, sometimes
+in a secret cave of his when they knew that Thorgest was about. And
+sometimes Eyjolf sent and said:
+
+"Thorgest is off. Come to my house for a feast."
+
+All this time they were making ready for the voyage, repairing the ship
+and filling it with stores. Word of what Eric meant to do got out, and
+men laughed and said:
+
+"Is that not like Eric? What will he not do?"
+
+Some men liked the sound of it, and they came to Eric and said:
+
+"We will go with you to this strange land."
+
+So all were ready and they pushed off with Eric's family aboard and
+those friends who had joined him. They took horses and cattle with them,
+and all kinds of tools and food.
+
+"I do not well know where this land is," Eric said. "Gunnbiorn said only
+that he sailed east when he came home to Iceland. So I will steer
+straight west. We shall surely find something. I do not know, either,
+how long we must go."
+
+So they sailed that strange ocean, never dreaming what might be ahead of
+them. They found no islands to rest on. They met heavy fogs.
+
+One day as Eric sat in the pilot's seat, he said:
+
+"I think that I see one of Gunnbiorn's ships of ice. Shall we sail up to
+her and see what kind of a craft she is?"
+
+"Yes," shouted his men.
+
+So they went on toward it.
+
+"It sends out a cold breath," said one of the men.
+
+They all wrapped their cloaks about them.
+
+"It is a bigger boat than I ever saw before," said Eric. "The white
+mast stands as high as a hill."
+
+"It must be giants that sail in it, frost giants," said another of the
+men.
+
+But as they came nearer, Eric all at once laughed loudly and called out:
+
+"By Thor, that Gunnbiorn was a foolish fellow. Why, look! It is only a
+piece of floating ice such as we sometimes see from Iceland. It is no
+ship, and there is no one on it."
+
+His men laughed and one called to another and said:
+
+"And you thought of frost giants!"
+
+Then they sailed on for days and days. They met many of these icebergs.
+On one of them was a white bear.
+
+"Yonder is a strange pilot," Eric laughed.
+
+"I have seen bears come floating so to the north shore of Iceland," an
+old man said. "Perhaps they come from the land that we are going to
+find."
+
+One day Eric said:
+
+"I see afar off an iceberg larger than any one yet. Perhaps that is our
+white land."
+
+[Illustration: "_It is a bigger boat than I ever saw before_"]
+
+But even as he said it he felt his boat swing under his hand as he held
+the tiller. He bore hard on the rudder, but he could not turn the ship.
+
+"What is this?" he cried. "A strong river is running here. It is
+carrying our ship away from this land. I cannot make head against it.
+Out with the oars!"
+
+So with oars and sail and rudder they fought against the current, but it
+took the boat along like a chip, and after a while they put up their
+oars and drifted.
+
+"Luck has taken us into its own hands," Eric laughed. "But this is as
+good a way as another."
+
+Sometimes they were near enough to see the land, then they were carried
+out into the sea and thought that they should never see any land again.
+
+"Perhaps this river will carry us to a whirlpool and suck us under," the
+men said.
+
+But at last Eric felt the current less strong under his hand.
+
+"To the oars again!" he called.
+
+So they fought with the current and sailed out of it and went on toward
+land. But when they reached the shore they found no place to go in.
+Steep black walls shot up from the sea. Nothing grew on them. When the
+men looked above the cliffs they saw a long line of white cutting the
+sky.
+
+"It is a land of ice," they said.
+
+They sailed on south, all the time looking for a place to go ashore.
+
+"I am sick of this endless sea," Thorhild complained, "but this land is
+worse."
+
+After a while they began to see small bays cut into the shore with
+little flat patches of green at their sides. They landed in these places
+and stretched and warmed themselves and ate.
+
+"But these spots are only big enough for graves," the men said. "We can
+not live here."
+
+So they went on again. All the time the weather was growing colder.
+Eric's people kept themselves wrapped in their cloaks and put scarfs
+around their heads.
+
+"And it is still summer!" Thorhild said. "What will it be in winter?"
+
+"We must find a place to build a house now before the winter comes on,"
+said Eric. "We must not freeze here."
+
+So they chose a little spot with hills about it to keep off the wind.
+They made a house out of stones; for there were many in that place. They
+lived there that winter. The sea for a long way out from shore froze so
+that it looked like white land. The men went out upon it to hunt white
+bear and seal. They ate the meat and wore the skins to keep them warm.
+The hardest thing was to get fuel for the fire. No trees grew there. The
+men found a little driftwood along the shore, but it was not enough. So
+they burned the bones and the fat of the animals they killed.
+
+"It is a sickening smell," Thorhild said. "I have not been out of this
+mean house for weeks. I am tired of the darkness and the smoke and the
+cattle. And all the time I hear great noises, as though some giant were
+breaking this land into pieces."
+
+"Ah, cheer up, good wife!" Eric laughed. "I smell better luck ahead."
+
+Once Eric and his men climbed the cliffs and went back into the middle
+of the land. When they came home they had this to tell:
+
+"It is a country of ice, shining white. Nothing grows on it but a few
+mosses. Far off it looks flat, but when you walk upon it, there are
+great holes and cracks. We could see nothing beyond. There seems to be
+only a fringe of land around the edge of an island of ice."
+
+The winter nights were very long. Sometimes the sun showed for an hour,
+sometimes for only a few minutes, sometimes it did not show at all for a
+week. The men hunted by the bright shining of the moon or by the
+northern lights.
+
+As it grew warmer the ice in the sea began to crack and move and melt
+and float away. Eric waited only until there was a clear passage in the
+water. Then he launched his boat, and they sailed southward again. At
+last they found a place that Eric liked.
+
+"Here I will build my house," he said.
+
+So they did and lived there that summer and pastured their cattle and
+cut hay for the winter and fished and hunted.
+
+The next spring Eric said:
+
+"The land stretches far north. I am hungry to know what is there."
+
+Then they all got into the boat again and sailed north.
+
+"We can leave no one here," Eric had said. "We cannot tell what might
+come between us. Perhaps giants or dragons or strange men might come out
+of this inland ice and kill our people. We must stay together."
+
+Farther north they found only the same bare, frozen country. So after a
+while they sailed back to their home and lived there.
+
+One spring after they had been in that land for four years, Eric said:
+
+"My eyes are hungry for the sight of men and green fields again. My
+stomach is sick of seal and whale and bear. My throat is dry for mead.
+This is a bare and cold and hungry land. I will visit my friends in
+Iceland."
+
+"And our swords are rusty with long resting," said his men. "Perhaps we
+can find play for them in Iceland."
+
+"Now I have a plan," Eric suddenly said. "Would it not be pleasant to
+see other feast halls as we sail along the coast?"
+
+"Oh! it would be a beautiful sight," his men said.
+
+"Well," said Eric, "I am going to try to bring back some neighbors from
+Iceland. Now we must have a name for our land. How does Greenland
+sound?"
+
+His men laughed and said:
+
+"It is a very white Greenland, but men will like the sound of it. It is
+better than Iceland."
+
+So Eric and all his people sailed back and spent the winter with his
+friends.
+
+"Ah! Eric, it is good to hear your laugh again," they said.
+
+Eric was at many feasts and saw many men, and he talked much of his
+Greenland.
+
+"The sea is full of whale and seals and great fish," he said. "The land
+has bear and reindeer. There are no men there. Come back with me and
+choose your land."
+
+Many men said that they would do it. Some men went because they thought
+it would be a great frolic to go to a new country. Some went because
+they were poor in Iceland and thought:
+
+"I can be no worse off in Greenland, and perhaps I shall grow rich
+there."
+
+And some went because they loved Eric and wanted to be his neighbors.
+
+So the next summer thirty-five ships full of men and women and goods
+followed Eric for Greenland. But they met heavy storms, and some ships
+were wrecked, and the men drowned. Other men grew heartsick at the
+terrible storm and the long voyage and no sight of land, and they turned
+back to Iceland. So of those thirty-five ships only fifteen got to
+Greenland.
+
+"Only the bravest and the luckiest men come here," Eric said. "We shall
+have good neighbors."
+
+Soon other houses were built along the fiords.
+
+"It is pleasant to sail along the coast now," said Eric. "I see smoke
+rising from houses and ships standing on the shore and friendly hands
+waving."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[14] See note about peace-bands on page 199.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Leif and His New Land
+
+
+Now Eric had lived in Greenland for fifteen years. His sons Thorstein
+and Leif had grown up to be big, strong men. One spring Leif said to his
+father:
+
+"I have never seen Norway, our mother land. I long to go there and meet
+the great men and see the places that skalds sing about."
+
+Eric answered:
+
+"It is right that you should go. No man has really lived until he has
+seen Norway."
+
+So he helped Leif fit out a boat and sent him off. Leif sailed for
+months. He passed Iceland and the Faroes and the Shetlands. He stopped
+at all of these places and feasted his mind on the new things. And
+everywhere men received him gladly; for he was handsome and wise. But at
+last he came near Norway. Then he stood up before the pilot's seat and
+sang loudly:
+
+    "My eyes can see her at last,
+    The mother of mighty men,
+    The field of famous fights.
+    In the sky above I see
+    Fair Asgard's shining roofs,
+    The flying hair of Thor,
+    The wings of Odin's birds,
+    The road that heroes tread.
+    I am here in the land of the gods,
+    The land of mighty men."
+
+For a while he walked the land as though he were in a dream. He looked
+at this and that and everything and loved them all because it was
+Norway.
+
+"I will go to the king," he said.
+
+He had never seen a king. There were no kings in Iceland or in
+Greenland. So he went to the city where the king had his fine house. The
+king's name was Olaf. He was a great-grandson of Harald Hairfair; for
+Harald had been dead a hundred years.
+
+Now the king was going to hold a feast at night, and Leif put on his
+most beautiful clothes to go to it. He put on long tights of blue wool
+and a short jacket of blue velvet. He belted his jacket with a gold
+girdle. He had shoes of scarlet with golden clasps. He threw around
+himself a cape of scarlet velvet lined with seal fur. His long sword
+stuck out from under his cloak. On his head he put a knitted cap of
+bright colors. Then he walked to the king's feast hall and went through
+the door. It was a great hall, and it was full of richly-dressed men.
+The fires shone on so many golden head-bands and bracelets and so many
+glittering swords and spears on the wall, and there was so much noise of
+talking and laughing, that at first Leif did not know what to do. But at
+last he went and sat on the very end seat of the bench near him.
+
+As the feast went on, King Olaf sat in his high seat and looked about
+the hall and noticed this one and that one and spoke across the fire to
+many. He was keen-eyed and soon saw Leif in his far seat.
+
+"Yonder is some man of mark," he said to himself. "He is surely worth
+knowing. His face is not the face of a fool. He carries his head like a
+lord of men."
+
+He sent a thrall and asked Leif to come to him. So Leif walked down the
+long hall and stood before the king.
+
+"I am glad to have you for a guest," the king said. "What are your name
+and country?"
+
+"I am Leif Ericsson, and I have come all the way from Greenland to see
+you and old Norway."
+
+"From Greenland!" said the king. "It is not often that I see a
+Greenlander. Many come to Norway to trade, but they seldom come to the
+king's hall. I shall be glad to hear about your land. Come up and speak
+with me."
+
+So Leif went up the steps of the high seat and sat down by the king and
+talked with him. When the feast was over the king said:
+
+"You shall live at my court this winter, Leif Ericsson. You are a
+welcome guest."
+
+So Leif stayed there that winter. When he started back in the spring,
+the king gave him two thralls as a parting gift.
+
+"Let this gift show my love, Leif Ericsson," he said. "For your sake I
+shall not forget Greenland."
+
+Leif sailed back again and had good luck until he was past Iceland. Then
+great winds came out of the north and tossed his ship about so that the
+men could do nothing. They were blown south for days and days. They did
+not know where they were. Then they saw land, and Leif said:
+
+"Surely luck has brought us also to a new country. We will go in and see
+what kind of a place it is."
+
+So he steered for it. As they came near, the men said:
+
+"See the great trees and the soft, green shore. Surely this is a better
+country than Greenland or than Iceland either."
+
+When they landed they threw themselves upon the ground.
+
+"I never lay on a bed so soft as this grass," one said.
+
+"Taller trees do not grow in Norway," said another.
+
+"There is no stone here as in Norway, but only good black dirt," Leif
+said. "I never saw so fertile a land before."
+
+The men were hungry and set about building a fire.
+
+"There is no lack of fuel here," they said.
+
+They stayed many days in this country and walked about to see what was
+there. A German, named Tyrker, was with Leif. He was a little man with a
+high forehead and a short nose. His eyes were big and rolling. He had
+lived with Eric for many years, and had taken care of Leif when he was a
+little boy. So Leif loved him.
+
+Now one day they had been wandering about and all came back to camp at
+night except Tyrker. When Leif looked around on his comrades, he said:
+
+"Where is Tyrker?"
+
+No one knew. Then Leif was angry.
+
+"Is a man of so little value in this empty land that you would lose
+one?" he said. "Why did you not keep together? Did you not see that he
+was gone? Why did you not set out to look for him? Who knows what
+terrible thing may have happened to him in these great forests?"
+
+Then he turned and started out to hunt for him. His men followed,
+silent and ashamed. They had not gone far when they saw Tyrker running
+toward them. He was laughing and talking to himself. Leif ran to him and
+put his arms about him with gladness at seeing him.
+
+[Illustration: "_He pointed to the woods and laughed and rolled his
+eyes_"]
+
+"Why are you so late?" he asked. "Where have you been?"
+
+But Tyrker, still smiling and nodding his head, answered in German. He
+pointed to the woods and laughed and rolled his eyes. Again Leif asked
+his question and put his hand on Tyrker's shoulder as though he would
+shake him. Then Tyrker answered in the language of Iceland:
+
+"I have not been so very far, but I have found something wonderful."
+
+"What is it?" cried the men.
+
+"I have found grapes growing wild," answered Tyrker, and he laughed, and
+his eyes shone.
+
+"It cannot be," Leif said.
+
+Grapes do not grow in Greenland nor in Iceland nor even in Norway. So it
+seemed a wonderful thing to these Norsemen.
+
+"Can I not tell grapes when I see them?" cried Tyrker. "Did I not grow
+up in Germany, where every hillside is covered with grapevines? Ah! it
+seems like my old home."
+
+"It is wonderful," Leif said. "I have heard travelers tell of seeing
+grapes growing, but I myself never saw it. You shall take us to them
+early in the morning, Tyrker."
+
+So in the morning they went back into the woods and saw the grapes. They
+ate of them.
+
+"They are like food and drink," they cried.
+
+That day Leif said:
+
+"We spent most of the summer on the ocean. Winter will soon be coming on
+and the sea about Greenland will be frozen. We must start back. I mean
+to take some of the things of this land to show to our people at home.
+We will fill the rowboat with grapes and tow it behind us. The ship we
+will load with logs from these great trees. That will be a welcome
+shipload in Greenland, where we have neither trees nor vines. Now half
+of you shall gather grapes for the next few days, and the other half
+shall cut timber."
+
+So they did, and after a week sailed off. The ship was full of lumber,
+and they towed the rowboat loaded with grapes. As they looked back at
+the shore, Leif said:
+
+"I will call this country Wineland for the grapes that grow there."
+
+One of the men leaped upon the gunwale and leaned out, clinging to the
+sail, and sang:
+
+    "Wineland the good, Wineland the warm,
+    Wineland the green, the great, the fat.
+    Our dragon fed and crawls away
+    With belly stuffed and lazy feet.
+    How long her purple, trailing tail!
+    She fed and grew to twice her size."
+
+Then all the men waved their hands to the shore and gave a great shout
+for that good land.
+
+For all that voyage they had fair weather and sailed into Eric's harbor
+before the winter came. Eric saw the ship and ran down to the shore. He
+took Leif into his arms and said:
+
+"Oh, my son, my old eyes ached to see you. I hunger to hear of all that
+you have seen and done."
+
+"Luck has followed me all the way," said Leif. "See what I have brought
+home."
+
+The Greenlanders looked.
+
+"Lumber! lumber!" they cried. "Oh! it is better stuff than gold."
+
+Then they saw the grapes and tasted them.
+
+"Surely you must have plundered Asgard," they said, smacking their lips.
+
+At the feast that night Eric said:
+
+"Leif shall sit in the place of honor."
+
+So Leif sat in the high seat opposite Eric. All men thought him a
+handsome and wise man. He told them of the storm and of Wineland.
+
+"No man would ever need a cloak there. The soil is richer than the soil
+of Norway. Grain grows wild, and you yourselves saw the grapes that we
+got from there. The forests are without end. The sea is full of fish."
+
+The Greenlanders listened with open mouths to all this. They turned and
+talked to Leif's ship-comrades who were scattered among them.
+
+Leif noticed two strangers, an old man who sat at Eric's side and a
+young woman on the cross-bench. He turned to his brother Thorstein who
+sat next to him.
+
+"Who are these strangers?" he asked.
+
+"Thorbiorn and his daughter Gudrid," Thorstein answered. "They landed
+here this spring. I never saw our father more glad of anything than to
+see this Thorbiorn. They were friends before we left Iceland. When they
+saw each other again they could not talk enough of old times. In the
+spring Eric means to give him a farm up the fiord a way. It seems that
+this Thorbiorn comes of a good family that has been rich and great in
+Iceland for years. And Thorbiorn himself was rich when our father knew
+him, and was much honored by all men. But ill luck came, and he grew
+poor. This hurt his pride. 'I will not stay in Iceland and be a beggar,'
+he said to himself. 'I will not have men look at me and say, "He is not
+what his father was." I will go to my friend Eric the Red in
+Greenland.'
+
+"Then he got ready a great feast and invited all his friends. It was
+such a feast as had not been in Iceland for years. Thorbiorn spent on it
+all the wealth that he had left. For he said to himself, 'I will not
+leave in shame. Men shall remember my last feast.' After that he set out
+and came to Greenland.
+
+"Is not Gudrid beautiful? And she is wise. I mean to marry her, if her
+father will permit it."
+
+Now Leif settled down in Greenland and became a great man there. He was
+so busy and he grew so rich that he did not think of going to Wineland
+again. But people could not forget his story. Many nights as men sat
+about the long fires they talked of that wonderful land and wished to
+see it.
+
+[Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Wineland the Good
+
+
+On an autumn, a year or two after Leif came home, Eric and his men saw
+two large ships come to land not far down the shore from the house.
+
+"They look like trading ships," Eric said. "Let us go down to see them."
+
+"I will go, too," Gudrid said. "Perhaps they will have rich cloth and
+jewelry. It is long since I had my eyes on a new dress."
+
+So they all went down and found two large trading ships lying in the
+water. A great many men were on the shore making a fire.
+
+"Welcome to Greenland!" called Eric. "What are your names and your
+country?"
+
+Then a fine, big man walked out from among the men and went up to Eric.
+
+"I am Thorfinn," he said, "a trader. I sailed this summer from Iceland
+with forty men and a shipload of goods. On the sea I met this other
+ship from Iceland. The master is Biarni. Come and look at my goods."
+
+So he rowed Eric and Gudrid out and they went aboard his boat. Thorfinn
+opened his chests and showed Eric gleaming swords and bracelets and axes
+and farm tools. But before Gudrid he spread beautiful cloth and gold
+embroidery and golden necklaces. As they looked, he told of doings in
+Iceland and asked of Greenland.
+
+"We never see such things as these in this bare land," Gudrid said, as
+she smoothed a beautiful dress of purple velvet. "I envy the women of
+Iceland their fair clothes."
+
+"There is no need of that," Thorfinn said, "for this dress is yours and
+anything else from my chests that you like. Here is a necklace that I
+beg you to take. It did not have a fairer mistress in Greece where I got
+it."
+
+"You are a very generous trader," Gudrid said.
+
+Then Thorfinn gave Eric a great sword with a gold-studded scabbard.
+After a while he took them to Biarni's ship. He also gave them gifts.
+They all talked and laughed much while they were together.
+
+"You are merry comrades," Eric said. "I ask you both and all your men to
+spend the winter at my house. You can put your goods into my
+storehouses."
+
+"By my sword! a generous offer," said Thorfinn. "As for me, I am happy
+to come."
+
+Biarni and all the rest said the same thing. Thorfinn walked to the
+house with Eric and Gudrid, while the other men sailed to the ship-sheds
+and pulled their boats under them.
+
+Then Thorfinn saw to the unloading and storing of his goods.
+
+"Is this Gudrid your daughter?" he asked of Eric one day.
+
+"She is the widow of my son Thorstein," Eric said. "He died the same
+winter that they were married. Her father, too, died not long ago. So
+Gudrid lives with me."
+
+Now all that winter until Yule-time Eric spread a good feast every
+night. There was laughter through his house all the time. Often at the
+feasts the men cast lots to see whether they might sit on the
+cross-bench with the women. Sometimes it was Thorfinn's luck to sit by
+Gudrid. Then they talked gaily and drank together.
+
+At last Yule was coming near. Eric went about the house gloomy then. One
+day Thorfinn put his hand on Eric's shoulder and said:
+
+"Something is troubling you, Eric. We have all noticed that you are not
+gay as you used to be. Tell me what is the matter."
+
+"You have carried yourselves like noble men in my house," Eric answered.
+"I am proud to have you for guests. Now I am ashamed that you should not
+find a house worthy of you. I am ashamed that when you leave me you will
+have to say that you never spent a worse Yule than you did with Eric the
+Red in Greenland. For my cupboards are empty."
+
+"Oh, that is easily mended," Thorfinn said. "No house could feed eighty
+men so long and not feel it. I never knew so generous a host before.
+But I have flour and grain and mead in my boat. You are welcome to all
+of it. You have only to open the doors of your own storehouses. It is a
+little gift."
+
+So Eric used those things, and there was never a merrier Yule feast than
+in his house that winter.
+
+When Yule was over, Thorfinn said to Eric:
+
+"Gudrid is a beautiful and wise woman. I wish to have her for my wife."
+
+"You seem to be a man worthy of her," Eric said.
+
+So that winter Gudrid and Thorfinn were married and lived at Eric's
+house.
+
+One day Thorfinn said to Eric:
+
+"I have heard much of this wonderful Wineland since I have been here. It
+seems to me that it is worth while to go and see more of it."
+
+"My son Thorstein and I tried it once," said Eric. "It was the year
+after Leif came back. We set out with a fair ship and with glad hearts,
+but we tossed about all summer on the sea and got nowhere. We were wet
+with storm, lean with hunger and illness, and heartsick at our bad
+luck."
+
+"And yet," Thorfinn said, "another time we might have better weather. I
+have never seen so fair a land as this seems to be."
+
+Then he went to Leif and talked long with him. Leif told him in what
+direction he had sailed to come home, and how the shores looked that he
+had passed.
+
+"I think I could find my way," Thorfinn said. "My heart moves me to try
+this frolic."
+
+He spoke to Gudrid about it.
+
+"Oh, yes!" she cried. "Let us go. It is long since I felt a boat leaping
+under me. I am tired of sitting still. I want to feel the warm days and
+see the soft grass and the high trees and taste the grapes of this
+Wineland the Good."
+
+Then he talked with his men and with Biarni.
+
+"We are ready," they all said. "We are only waiting for a leader."
+
+"Then let us go!" cried Thorfinn.
+
+So in the spring they fitted up their two ships and put into them
+provisions and a few cattle. Some of Eric's men also got ready a boat,
+so that three ships set sail from Eric's harbor carrying one hundred and
+sixty men to Wineland. As they started, Gudrid stood on the deck and
+sang:
+
+    "I will feast my eyes on new things--
+    On mighty trees and purple grapes,
+    On beds of flowers and soft grass.
+    I will sun myself in a warm land."
+
+They sailed on and past those shores that Leif had spoken of. Whenever
+they saw any interesting place they sailed in and looked about and
+rested there.
+
+They had gone far south, past many fair shores with woods on them, when
+Gudrid said one day:
+
+"This is a beautiful bay with a smooth, green field by it, and the great
+mountains far back. I should like to stay there for a little while."
+
+So they sailed in and drew their ships up on shore. They put up the
+awnings in them.
+
+"These shall be our houses," Thorfinn said.
+
+They were strange-looking houses--shining dragons with gay backs lying
+on the yellow sand. Near them the Norsemen lighted fires and cooked
+their supper. That night they slept in the ships. In the morning Gudrid
+said:
+
+"I long to see what is back of that mountain."
+
+So they all climbed it. When they stood on the top they could see far
+over the country.
+
+"There is a lake that we must see," Thorfinn said.
+
+"I should like to sail around that bay," said Biarni, pointing.
+
+"I am going to walk up that valley yonder," one of the men said.
+
+And everyone saw some place where he would like to go. So for all that
+summer they camped in that spot and went about the country seeing new
+things. They hunted in the woods and caught rabbits and birds and
+sometimes bears and deer. Every day some men rowed out to sea and
+fished. There was an island in the bay where thousands of birds had
+their nests. The men gathered eggs here.
+
+"We have more to eat than we had in Greenland or Iceland," Thorfinn
+said, "and need not work at all. It is all play."
+
+Near the end of summer Thorfinn spoke to his comrades.
+
+"Have we not seen everything here? Let us go to a new place. We have not
+yet found grapes."
+
+Thorfinn and Biarni and all their men sailed south again. But some of
+Eric's men went off in their boat another way. Years afterward the
+Greenlanders heard that they were shipwrecked and made slaves in
+Ireland.
+
+After Thorfinn and Biarni had sailed for many days they landed on a low,
+green place. There were hills around it. A little lake was there.
+
+"What is growing on those hillsides?" Thorfinn said, shading his eyes
+with his hand.
+
+He and some others ran up there. The people on shore heard them shout.
+Soon they came running back with their hands full of something.
+
+"Grapes! Grapes!" they were shouting.
+
+All those people sat down and ate the grapes and then went to the
+hillside and picked more.
+
+"Now we are indeed in Wineland," they said. "It is as wonderful as
+Leif's stories. Surely we must stay here for a long time."
+
+The very next day they went into the woods and began to cut out lumber.
+The huts that they built were little things. They had no windows, and in
+the doorways the men hung their cloaks instead of doors.
+
+"We can be out in the air so much in this warm country," said Gudrid,
+"that we do not need fine houses."
+
+The huts were scattered all about, some on the side of the lake, some at
+the shore of the harbor, some on the hillside. Gudrid had said:
+
+"I want to live by the lake where I can look into the green woods and
+hear sweet bird-noises."
+
+So Thorfinn built his hut there.
+
+As they sat about the campfire one night, Biarni said:
+
+"It is strange that so good a land should be empty. I suppose that
+these are the first houses that were ever built in Wineland. It is
+wonderful to think that we are alone here in this great land."
+
+All that winter no snow fell. The cattle pastured on the grass.
+
+"To think of the cold, frozen winters in Greenland!" Gudrid said. "Oh!
+this is the sun's own land."
+
+In the beginning of that winter a little son was born to Gudrid and
+Thorfinn.
+
+"A health to the first Winelander!" the men shouted and drank down their
+wine; for they had made some from Wineland grapes.
+
+"Will he be the father of a great country, as Ingolf was?" Biarni mused.
+
+Gudrid looked at her baby and smiled.
+
+"You will be as sunny as this good land, I hope," she said.
+
+They named him Snorri. He grew fast and soon crept along the yellow
+sand, and toddled among the grapevines, and climbed into the boats and
+learned to talk. The men called him the "Wineland king."
+
+"I never knew a baby before," one of the men said.
+
+"No," said another. "Swords are jealous. But when they are in their
+scabbards, we can do other things, even play with babies."
+
+"I wonder whether I have forgotten how to swing my sword in this quiet
+land," another man said.
+
+One spring morning when the men got up and went out from their huts to
+the fires to cook they saw a great many canoes in the harbor. Men were
+in them paddling toward shore.
+
+"What is this?" cried the Norsemen to one another. "Where did they come
+from? Are they foes? Who ever saw such boats before? The men's faces are
+brown."
+
+"Let every man have his sword ready," cried Thorfinn. "But do not draw
+until I command. Let us go to meet them."
+
+So they went and stood on the shore. Soon the men from the canoes landed
+and stood looking at the Norsemen. The strangers' skin was brown. Their
+faces were broad. Their hair was black. Their bodies were short. They
+wore leather clothes. One man among them seemed to be chief. He spread
+out his open hands to the Norsemen.
+
+"He is showing us that he has no weapons," Biarni said. "He comes in
+peace."
+
+Then Thorfinn showed his empty hands and asked:
+
+"What do you want?"
+
+The stranger said something, but the Norsemen could not understand. It
+was some new language. Then the chief pointed to one of the huts and
+walked toward it. He and his men walked all around it and felt of the
+timber and went into it and looked at all the things there--spades and
+cloaks and drinking-horns. As they looked they talked together. They
+went to all the other huts and looked at everything there. One of them
+found a red cloak. He spread it out and showed it to the others. They
+all stood about it and looked at it and felt of it and talked fast.
+
+"They seem to like my cloak," Biarni said.
+
+One of the strangers went down to their canoes and soon came back with
+an armload of furs--fox-skins, otter-skins, beaver-skins. The chief took
+some and held them out to Thorfinn and hugged the cloak to him.
+
+[Illustration: "_The chief held them out to Thorfinn and hugged the
+cloak to him_"]
+
+"He wants to trade," Thorfinn said. "Will you do it, Biarni?"
+
+"Yes," Biarni answered, and took the furs.
+
+"If they want red stuff, I have a whole roll of red cloth that I will
+trade," one of the other men said.
+
+He went and got it. When the strangers saw it they quickly held out more
+furs and seemed eager to trade. So Thorfinn cut the cloth into pieces
+and sold every scrap. When the strangers got it they tied it about their
+heads and seemed much pleased.
+
+While this trading was going on and everybody was good-natured, a bull
+of Thorfinn's ran out of the woods bellowing and came towards the crowd.
+When the strangers heard it and saw it they threw down whatever was in
+their hands and ran to their canoes and paddled off as fast as they
+could.
+
+The Norsemen laughed.
+
+"We have lost our customers," Biarni said.
+
+"Did they never see a bull before?" laughed one of the men.
+
+Now after three weeks the Norsemen saw canoes in the bay again. This
+time it was black with them, there were so many. The people in them were
+all making a horrible shout.
+
+"It is a war-cry," Thorfinn said, and he raised a red shield. "They are
+surely twenty to our one, but we must fight. Stand in close line and
+give them a taste of your swords."
+
+Even as he spoke a great shower of stones fell upon them. Some of the
+Norsemen were hit on the head and knocked down. Biarni got a broken arm.
+Still the storm came fast. The strangers had landed and were running
+toward the Norsemen. They threw their stones with sling-shots, and they
+yelled all the time.
+
+"Oh, this is no kind of fighting for brave men!" Thorfinn cried angrily.
+
+The Norsemen's swords swung fast, and many of the strangers died under
+them, but still others came on, throwing stones and swinging stone axes.
+The horrible yelling and the strange things that the savages did
+frightened the Norsemen.
+
+"These are not men," some one cried.
+
+Then those Norsemen who had never been afraid of anything turned and
+ran. But when they came to the top of a rough hill Thorfinn cried:
+
+"What are we doing? Shall we die here in this empty land with no one to
+bury us? We are leaving our women."
+
+Then one of the women ran out of the hut where they were hiding.
+
+"Give me a sword!" she cried. "I can drive them back. Are Norsemen not
+better than these savages?"
+
+Then those warriors stopped, ashamed, and stood up before the wild men
+and fought so fiercely that the strangers turned and fled down to their
+canoes and paddled away.
+
+"Oh, I am glad they are gone!" Thorfinn said. "It was an ugly fight."
+
+"Thor would not have loved that battle," one said.
+
+"It was no battle," another replied. "It was like fighting against an
+army of poisonous flies."
+
+The Norsemen were all worn and bleeding and sore. They went to their
+huts and dressed their wounds, and the women helped them. At supper that
+night they talked about the fight for a long time.
+
+"I will not stay here," Gudrid said. "Perhaps these wild men have gone
+away to get more people and will come back and kill us. Oh! they are
+ugly."
+
+"Perhaps brown faces are looking at us now from behind the trees in the
+woods back there," said Biarni.
+
+It was the wish of all to go home. So after a few days they sailed back
+to Greenland with good weather all the way. The people at Eric's house
+were very glad to see them.
+
+"We were afraid you had died," they said.
+
+"And I thought once that we should never leave Wineland alive," Thorfinn
+answered.
+
+Then they told all the story.
+
+"I wonder why I had no such bad luck," Leif said. "But you have a better
+shipload than I got."
+
+He was looking at the bundles of furs and the kegs of wine.
+
+"Yes," said Thorfinn, "we have come back richer than when we left. But I
+will never go again for all the skins in the woods."
+
+The next summer Thorfinn took Gudrid and Snorri and all his people and
+sailed back to Iceland, his home. There he lived until he died. People
+looked at him in wonder.
+
+"That is the man who went to Wineland and fought with wild men," they
+said. "Snorri is his son. He is the first and last Winelander, for no
+one will ever go there again. It will be an empty and forgotten land."
+
+And so it was for a long time. Some wise men wrote down the story of
+those voyages and of that land, and people read the tale and liked it,
+but no one remembered where the place was. It all seemed like a fairy
+tale. Long afterwards, however, men began to read those stories with
+wide-open eyes and to wonder. They guessed and talked together, and
+studied this and that land, and read the story over and over. At last
+they have learned that Wineland was in America, on the eastern shore of
+the United States, and they have called Snorri the first American, and
+have put up statues of Leif Ericsson, the first comer to America.[15]
+
+[Decoration]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[15] See note about Eskimos on page 199.
+
+
+
+
+Descriptive Notes
+
+
+_House._ In a rich Norseman's home were many buildings. The finest and
+largest was the great feast hall. Next were the bower, where the women
+worked, and the guest house, where visitors slept. Besides these were
+storehouses, stables, work-shops, a kitchen, a sleeping-house for
+thralls. All these buildings were made of heavy, hewn logs, covered with
+tar to fill the cracks and to keep the wood from rotting. The ends of
+the logs, the door-posts, the peaks of gables, were carved into shapes
+of men and animals and were painted with bright colors. These gay
+buildings were close together, often set around the four sides of a
+square yard. That yard was a busy and pleasant place, with men and women
+running across from one bright building to another. Sometimes a high
+fence with one gate went around all this, and only the tall, carved
+peaks of roofs showed from the outside.
+
+_Names._ An old Norse story says: "Most men had two names in one, and
+thought it likeliest to lead to long life and good luck to have double
+names." To be called after a god was very lucky. Here are some of those
+double names with their meanings: "Thorstein" means Thor's stone;
+"Thorkel" means Thor's fire; "Thorbiorn" means Thor's bear; "Gudbrand"
+means Gunnr's sword (Gunnr was one of the Valkyrias[16]); "Gunnbiorn"
+means Gunnr's bear; "Gudrid" means Gunnr's rider; "Gudrod" means
+Gunnr's land-clearer. (Most of the land in old Norway was covered with
+forests. When a man got new land he had to clear off the trees.) In
+those olden days a man did not have a surname that belonged to everyone
+in his family. Sometimes there were two or three men of the same name in
+a neighborhood. That caused trouble. People thought of two ways of
+making it easy to tell which man was being spoken of. Each was given a
+nickname. Suppose the name of each was Haki. One would be called Haki
+the Black because he had black hair. The other would be called Haki the
+Ship-chested because his chest was broad and strong. These nicknames
+were often given only for the fun of it. Most men had them,--Eric the
+Red, Leif the Lucky, Harald Hairfair, Rolf Go-afoot. The other way of
+knowing one Haki from the other was to tell his father's name. One was
+Haki, Eric's son. The other was Haki, Halfdan's son. If you speak these
+names quickly, they sound like Haki Ericsson and Haki Halfdansson. After
+a while they were written like that, and men handed them on to their
+sons and daughters. Some names that we have nowadays have come down to
+us in just that way--Swanson, Anderson, Peterson, Jansen. There was
+another reason for these last names: a man was proud to have people know
+who his father was.
+
+_Drinking-horns._ The Norsemen had few cups or goblets. They used
+instead the horns of cattle, polished and trimmed with gold or silver or
+bronze. They were often very beautiful, and a man was almost as proud
+of his drinking-horn as of his sword.
+
+_Tables._ Before a meal thralls brought trestles into the feast hall and
+set them before the benches. Then they laid long boards across from
+trestle to trestle. These narrow tables stretched all along both sides
+of the hall. People sat at the outside edge only. So the thralls served
+from the middle of the room. They put baskets of bread and wooden
+platters of meat upon these bare boards. At the end of the meal they
+carried out tables and all, and the drinking-horns went round in a clean
+room.
+
+_Beds._ Around the sides of the feast hall were shut-beds. They were
+like big boxes with doors opening into the hall. On the floor of this
+box was straw with blankets thrown over it. The people got into these
+beds and closed the doors and so shut themselves in. Olaf's men could
+have set heavy things against these doors or have put props against
+them. Then the people could not have got out; for on the other side of
+the bed was the thick outside wall of the feast hall, and there were no
+windows in it.
+
+_Feast Hall._ The feast hall was long and narrow, with a door at each
+end. Down the middle of the room were flat stones in the dirt floor.
+Here the fires burned. In the roof above these fires were holes for the
+smoke to go out, but some of it blew about the hall, and the walls and
+rafters were stained with it. But it was pleasant wood smoke, and the
+Norsemen did not dislike it. There were no large windows in a feast hall
+or in any other Norse building. High up under the eaves or in the roof
+itself were narrow slits that were called wind's-eyes. There was no
+glass in them, for the Norsemen did not know how to make it; but there
+were, instead, covers made of thin, oiled skin. These were put into the
+wind's-eyes in stormy weather. There were covers, too, for the
+smoke-holes. The only light came through these narrow holes, so on dark
+days the people needed the fire as much for light as for warmth.
+
+_Foster-father._ A Norse father sent his children away from home to grow
+up. They went when they were three or four years old and stayed until
+they were grown. The father thought: "They will be better so. If they
+stayed at home, their mother would spoil them with much petting."
+
+_Foster-brothers._ When two men loved each other very much they said,
+"Let us become foster-brothers."
+
+Then they went and cut three long pieces of turf and put a spear into
+the ground so that it held up the strips of turf like an arch. Runes
+were cut on the handle of the spear, telling the duties of
+foster-brothers. The two men walked under this arch, and each made a
+little cut in his palm. They knelt and clasped hands, so that the blood
+of the two flowed together, and they said, "Now we are of one blood."
+
+Then each made this vow: "I will fight for my foster-brother whenever he
+shall need me. If he is killed before I am, I will punish the man who
+did it. Whatever things I own are as much my foster-brother's as mine. I
+will love this man until I die. I call Odin and Thor and all the gods to
+hear my vow. May they hate me if I break it!"
+
+_Ran._ Ran was the wife of Aegir, who was god of the sea. They lived in
+a cave at the bottom of the ocean. Ran had a great net, and she caught
+in it all men who were shipwrecked and took them to her cave. She also
+caught all the gold and rich treasures that went down in ships. So her
+cave was filled with shining things.
+
+_Valkyrias._ These were the maidens of Odin. They waited on the table in
+Valhalla. But whenever a battle was being fought they rode through the
+air on their horses and watched to see what warriors were brave enough
+to go to Valhalla. Sometimes during the fight a man would think that he
+saw the Valkyrias. Then he was glad; for he knew that he would go to
+Valhalla.
+
+An old Norse story says this about the Valkyrias: "With lightning around
+them, with bloody shirts of mail, and with shining spears they ride
+through the air and the ocean. When their horses shake their manes, dew
+falls on the deep valleys and hail on the high forests."
+
+_Odin's Ravens._ Odin had a great throne in his palace in Asgard. When
+he sat in it he could look all over the world. But it was so far to see
+that he could not tell all of the things that were happening. So he had
+two ravens to help him. An old Norse story tells this about them: "Two
+ravens sit on Odin's shoulders and whisper in his ears all that they
+have heard and seen. He sends them out at dawn of day to see over the
+whole world. They return at evening near meal time. This is why Odin
+knows so many things."
+
+_Reykjavik._ Reykjavik means "smoky sea." Ingolf called it that because
+of the steaming hot-springs by the sea. The place is still called
+Reykjavik. A little city has grown up there, the only city in Iceland.
+It is the capital of the country.
+
+_Peace-bands._ A Norseman always carried his sword, even at a feast; for
+he did not know when he might need it. But when he went somewhere on an
+errand of peace and had no quarrel he tied his sword into its scabbard
+with white bands that he called peace-bands. If all at once something
+happened to make him need his sword, he broke the peace-bands and drew
+it out.
+
+_Eskimos._ Now, the Eskimos live in Greenland and Alaska and on the very
+northern shores of Canada. But once they lived farther south in
+pleasanter lands. After a while the other Indian tribes began to grow
+strong. Then they wanted the pleasant land of the Eskimos and the
+seashore that the Eskimos had. So they fought again and again with those
+people and won and drove them farther north and farther north. At last
+the Eskimos were on the very shores of the cold sea, with the Indians
+still pushing them on. So some of them got into their boats and rowed
+across the narrow water and came to Greenland and lived there. Some
+people think that these things happened before Eric found Greenland. In
+that case he found Eskimos there; and Thorfinn saw red Indians in
+Wineland. Other people think that this happened after Eric went to
+Greenland. If that is true, he found an empty land, and it was Eskimos
+that Thorfinn saw in Wineland.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[16] See note about Valkyrias on page 198.
+
+
+
+
+Suggestions _to_ Teachers
+
+
+Possibly this book seems made up of four or five disconnected stories.
+They are, however, strung upon one thread,--the westward emigration from
+Norway. The story of Harald is intended to serve in two ways towards the
+working out of this plot. It gives the general setting that continues
+throughout the book in costume, houses, ideals, habits. It explains the
+cause of the emigration from the mother country. It is really an
+introductory chapter. As for the other stories, they are distinctly
+steps in the progress of the plot. A chain of islands loosely connects
+Norway with America,--Orkneys and Shetlands, Faroes, Iceland, Greenland.
+It was from link to link of this chain that the Norsemen sailed in
+search of home and adventure. Discoveries were made by accident. Ships
+were driven by the wind from known island to unknown. These two
+points,--the island connection that made possible the long voyage from
+Norway to America, and the contribution of storm to discovery,--I have
+stated in the book only dramatically. I emphasize them here, hoping that
+the teacher will make sure that the children see them, and possibly that
+they state them abstractly.
+
+Let me speak as to the proper imaging of the stories. I have not often
+interrupted incident with special description, not because I do not
+consider the getting of vivid and detailed images most necessary to full
+enjoyment and to proper intellectual habits, but because I trusted to
+the pictures of this book and to the teacher to do what seemed to me
+inartistic to do in the story. Some of these descriptions and
+explanations I have introduced into the book in the form of notes,
+hoping that the children in turning to them might form a habit of
+insisting upon full understanding of a point, and might possibly, with
+the teacher's encouragement, begin the habit of reference reading.
+
+The landscape of Norway, Iceland, and Greenland is wonderful and will
+greatly assist in giving reality and definiteness to the stories.
+Materials for this study are not difficult of access. Foreign colored
+photographs of Norwegian landscape are becoming common in our art
+stores. There are good illustrations in the geographical works referred
+to in the book list. These could be copied upon the blackboard. There
+are three books beautifully illustrated in color that it will be
+possible to find only in large libraries,--"Coast of Norway," by Walton;
+"Travels in the Island of Iceland," by Mackenzie; "Voyage en Islande et
+au Gröenland," by J. P. Gaimard. If the landscape is studied from the
+point of view of formation, the images will be more accurate and more
+easily gained, and the study will have a general value that will
+continue past the reading of these stories into all work in geography.
+
+Trustworthy pictures of Norse houses and costumes are difficult to
+obtain. In "Viking Age" and "Story of Norway," by Boyesen (G. P.
+Putnam's Sons, New York), are many copies of Norse antiquities in the
+fashion of weapons, shield-bosses, coins, jewelry, wood-carving. These
+are, of course, accurate, but of little interest to children. Their
+chief value lies in helping the teacher to piece together a picture that
+she can finally give to her pupils.
+
+Metal-working and wood-carving were the most important arts of the
+Norse. If children study products of these arts and actually do some of
+the work, they will gain a quickened sympathy with the people and an
+appreciation of their power. They may, perhaps, make something to merely
+illustrate Norse work; for instance, a carved ship's-head, or a copper
+shield, or a wrought door-nail. But, better, they may apply Norse ideas
+of form and decoration and Norse processes in making some modern thing
+that they can actually use; for instance, a carved wood pin-tray or a
+copper match holder. This work should lead out into a study of these
+same industries among ourselves with visits to wood-working shops and
+metal foundries.
+
+Frequent drawn or painted illustration by the children of costumes,
+landscapes, houses, feast halls, and ships will help to make these
+images clear. But dramatization will do more than anything else for the
+interpreting of the stories and the characters. It would be an excellent
+thing if at last, through the dramatization and the handwork, the
+children should come into sufficient understanding and enthusiasm to
+turn skalds and compose songs in the Norse manner. This requires only a
+small vocabulary and a rough feeling for simple rhythm, but an intensity
+of emotion and a great vividness of image.
+
+These Norse stories have, to my thinking, three values. The men, with
+the crude courage and the strange adventures that make a man interesting
+to children, have at the same time the love of truth, the hardy
+endurance, the faithfulness to plighted word, that make them a child's
+fit companions. Again, in form and in matter old Norse literature is
+well worth our reading. I should deem it a great thing accomplished if
+the children who read these stories should so be tempted after a while
+to read those fine old books, to enjoy the tales, to appreciate
+straightforwardness and simplicity of style. The historical value of the
+story of Leif Ericsson and the others seems to me to be not to learn the
+fact that Norsemen discovered America before Columbus did, but to gain a
+conception of the conditions of early navigation, of the length of the
+voyage, of the dangers of the sea, and a consequent realization of the
+reason for the fact that America was unknown to mediæval Europe, of why
+the Norsemen did not travel, of what was necessary to be done before men
+should strike out across the ocean. Norse story is only one chapter in
+that tale of American discovery. I give below an outline of a year's
+work on the subject that was once followed by the fourth grade of the
+Chicago Normal School. The idea in it is to give importance, sequence,
+reasonableness, broad connections, to the discovery of America.
+
+The head of the history department who planned this course says it is
+"in a sense a dramatization of the development of geographical
+knowledge."
+
+Following is a bare topical outline of the work:
+
+    Evolution of the forms of boats.
+    Viking tales.
+    A crusade as a tale of travel and discovery.
+    Monasteries as centers of work.
+    Printing.
+    Story of Marco Polo.
+    Columbus' discovery.
+    Story of Vasco da Gama.
+    Story of Magellan.
+
+[Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+A Reading List
+
+
+GEOGRAPHY
+
+NORWAY: "The Earth and Its Inhabitants," Reclus. _D. Appleton & Co., New
+York._
+
+ICELAND: "The Earth and Its Inhabitants," "Iceland," Baring-Gould.
+_Smith, Elder & Co., London, 1863._
+
+    "Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroes." _Harper Bros., New York._
+
+    "An American in Iceland," Kneeland. _Lockwood, Brooke & Co., Boston,
+    1876._
+
+GREENLAND: "The Earth and Its Inhabitants," Reclus. _D. Appleton & Co.,
+New York._
+
+    "Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroes." _Harper Bros., New York._
+
+
+CUSTOMS
+
+"Viking Age," Du Chaillu. _Charles Scribner's Sons, 1889._
+
+"Private Life of the Old Northmen," Keyser; translated by Barnard.
+_Chapman & Hall, London, 1868._
+
+"Saga Time," Vicary. _Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., London._
+
+"Story of Burnt Njal" (Introduction), Dasent. _Edmonston & Douglas,
+Edinburgh, 1861._
+
+"Vikings of the Baltic, a romance;" Dasent. _Edmonston & Douglas,
+Edinburgh._
+
+"Ivar the Viking, a romance;" Du Chaillu. _Charles Scribner's Sons, New
+York._
+
+"Viking Path, a romance;" Haldane Burgess. _Wm. Blackwood & Sons,
+Edinburgh, 1894._
+
+"Northern Antiquities," Percy, edited by Blackwell. _Bohn, London,
+1859._
+
+Also the Sagas named on page 206.
+
+
+MYTHOLOGY
+
+The Prose Edda, "Northern Antiquities," Percy, edited by Blackwell.
+_Bohn, London, 1859._
+
+"Norse Mythology," Anderson. _Scott, Foresman & Co., Chicago, 1876._
+
+"Norse Stories," Mabie. _Rand, McNally & Co., Chicago, 1902._
+
+"Northern Mythology," Thorpe. _Lumley, London, 1851._
+
+"Classic Myths," Judd. _Rand, McNally & Co., Chicago, 1902._
+
+
+INCIDENTS
+
+HARALD: Saga of Harald Hairfair, in "Saga Library," Magnusson and
+Morris, Vol. I. _Bernard Quaritch, London; Charles Scribner's Sons, New
+York, 1892._
+
+INGOLF: "Norsemen in Iceland," Dasent in Oxford Essays, Vol. IV. _Parker
+& Son, London, 1858._
+
+    "Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroes." _Harper Bros., New York._
+
+    "A Winter in Iceland and Lapland," Dillon. _Henry Colburn, London,
+    1840._
+
+ERIC, LEIF, AND THORFINN: "The Finding of Wineland the Good," Reeves.
+_Henry Froude, 1890._
+
+    "America Not Discovered by Columbus." Anderson. _Scott, Foresman &
+    Co., Chicago, 1891._
+
+
+CREDIBILITY OF STORY
+
+Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History of America," Vol. I. _C. A.
+Nichols Co., Springfield, Mass., 1895._
+
+"Discovery of America," Fiske, Vol. I. _Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston,
+1892._
+
+
+OTHER SAGAS EASILY ACCESSIBLE
+
+"Saga Library," 5 vols.; Morris and Magnusson. _Bernard Quaritch,
+London; Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1892._ As follows:
+
+    "The Story of Howard the Halt," "The Story of the Banded Men," "The
+    Story of Hen Thorir." Done into English out of Icelandic by William
+    Morris and Eirikr Magnusson.
+
+    "The Story of the Ere-dwellers," with "The Story of the
+    Heath-slayings" as Appendix. Done into English out of the Icelandic
+    by William Morris and Eirikr Magnusson.
+
+    "The Stories of the Kings of Norway, called the Round World"
+    (Heimskringla). By Snorri Sturluson. Done into English by William
+    Morris and Eirikr Magnusson. With a large map of Norway. In three
+    volumes.
+
+"Gisli the Outlaw," Dasent. _Edmonston & Douglas, Edinburgh._
+
+"Orkneyinga Saga," Anderson. _Edmonston & Douglas, Edinburgh._
+
+"Volsunga Saga," Morris and Magnusson. _Walter Scott, London._
+
+"The Younger Edda," Anderson. _Scott, Foresman & Co., Chicago, 1880._
+
+(A full bibliography of the Sagas may be found in "Volsunga Saga.")
+
+[Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+A Pronouncing Index
+
+
+(_This index and guide to pronunciation which are given to indicate the
+pronunciation of the more difficult words, are based upon the 1918
+edition of Webster's New International Dictionary._)
+
+ Aegir ([=e]´ j[)i]r)
+ _[.A]_r[=a]´ b[)i] _[.a]_
+ Ärn´ v[)i]d
+ [)A]s´ gärd
+ [A:]ud´ b[)i] ôrn
+ [A:]u´ d[)u]n
+
+ B[)i] är´ n[)i]
+
+ Eric ([=e]´ r[)i]k)
+ Ericsson ([)e]r´ [)i]k s_[)u]_n)
+ Eyjolf ([=i]´ y[+o]lf)
+
+ Faroes (f[=a]´ r[=o]z)
+ fiord (fyôrd)
+ Fl[=o]´ k[)i]
+
+ Gr[)i]m
+ G[)u]d´ bränd
+ G[)u]d´ r[)i]d
+ G[)u]d´ r[=o]d
+ G[)u]n_n_´ b[)i] ôrn
+ G[u:]´ t_h_ôrm
+ Gyda (g[=e]´ d[+a])
+
+ Hä´ k[)i]
+ Hä´ k[+o]n
+ Hälf´ d[)a]n
+ H[)a]r´ [)a]ld
+ Hä´ värd
+ H[)e]l´ ä
+ H[)e]l´ g[+a]
+ H[~e]r´ st_e_[=i]n
+ Holmstein (h[=o]lm´ st[=i]n)
+
+ [)I]n´ gôlf
+ [=I]´ vär
+
+ Leif (l[+i]f)
+
+ Niflheim (n[+e]v´ 'l h[=a]m)
+
+ [=O]´ d[)i]n
+ [=O]´ läf
+ Orkneys (ôrk´ n[)i]z)
+
+ Rän
+ Reykjavik (r[=a]´ ky_[.a]_ v[=e]k´)
+ Rôlf
+
+ Sh[)e]t´ l_[)a]_nds
+ Sif (s[=e]f)
+ Sighvat (s[)i]g´ v[)a]t)
+ Snorri (sn[)o]r´ r[+e])
+ Sôl´ f[)i]
+
+ Thor (thôr)
+ T_h_ôr´ b[)i] ôrn
+ T_h_ôr´ f[)i]nn
+ T_h_ôr´ g[)e]st
+ T_h_ôr´ h[)i]ld
+ T_h_ôr´ k[)e]l
+ T_h_ôr´ l_e_[=i]f
+ T_h_ôr´ ôlf
+ T_h_ôr´ st_e_[=i]n
+ Tyrker (t[~e]r´ k[~e]r)
+
+ V[)a]l h[)a]l´ _l[.a]_
+ Valkyria (v[)a]l k[)i]r´ y_[.a]_)
+ V[=i]´ k[)i]ng
+
+
+A GUIDE TO PRONUNCIATION
+
+ [=a] as in [=a]le
+ [)a] as in [)a]dd
+ _[)a]_ as in fin_[)a]_l
+ [.a] as in [.a]sk
+ _[.a]_ as in sof_[.a]_
+ ä as in ärm
+ [a:] as in [a:]ll
+
+ [=e] as in [=e]ve
+ [+e] as in [+e]vent´
+ [)e] as in [)e]nd
+ [~e] as in h[~e]r
+
+ [=i] as in [=i]ce
+ [)i] as in [)i]t
+
+ [=o] as in [=o]ld
+ [+o] as in [+o]bey´
+ [)o] as in [)o]dd
+ ô as in lôrd
+
+ [)u] as in [)u]p
+ _[)u]_ as in circ_[)u]_s
+ [u:] as in r[u:]de
+
+ [=y] as in fl[=y]
+
+Silent letters are italicized.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Viking Tales, by Jennie Hall
+
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