t thou hast released me from madness, and an evil life.

"I can, to requite thee, as all my heritage, leave thee only this
hammer. Guard it faithfully.

"Whether there be Gods--I know not. Methinks that men can never search
it out. But I tell thee, my son, whether Gods live or not, hammer
throwing, and harp playing, and sunshine, and the kiss of woman, these
are the rewards of life.

"Mayest thou win a wife who is but a faint reflection of Thora.

"Then hail to thee, my son!

"Bury me here, where mingles the roar of the forest and the sea.

"Farewell my dear son. Dame Harthild's curse thou hast turned for me
into a blessing."

And he died.

The blackbird ceased singing in the bush. And as the sun sank, one warm
full flood of his rays streamed full upon that mighty face.

Thus died the son of Oski.

CHAPTER XVIII.

When now my dear father was dead, whom I myself had slain, I wept
bitterly, and lay all night by the side of the dead.

And when the sun again arose I considered what I should now do.

At first I thought I would drive the flock to the monastery, which lay
some six stages distant, and relate all to the monks, and confess how I
had, all unwittingly, slain my own father; and beg for absolution for
myself, and for a Christian grave for my dear father.

But I bethought me that the monks would not bury my father with
Christian honours, since he had died a heathen. And neither would they
allow me to burn him, after the custom of the heathen people, because
the heathen gods would thus be brought much into remembrance. And they
would certainly throw him, unhonoured, into the sea, as they had
already done to a heathen from Zealand.

So I resolved to be silent about it all, and not to betray my dear dead
father to the priests.

And thus could I neither confess the death blow, nor receive counsel
respecting my guiltless crime.

And from thence was the beginning of my freeing my mind from the monks
and their creed.

And I knew, quite near, of a cavern, which was known only to me, for it
had a very small entrance, and I had only discovered it because I had
followed a stone marten which had slipped into it. A fallen block of
stone concealed the entrance, and I found many ashes and remnants of
bones within the spacious cavern, which opened towards the sea. In
early days, no doubt, the heathen Scots had burnt their dead here.
Thither I carried, not without much diffic