ulty, my dear dead father,
and set him upright in the cavern, his face turned towards the sea. The
roots of the oaks and ashes which waved above the cavern, penetrated
through the stone downwards almost to his head. Above him roared the
forest, before him roared the sea. There did I place my dear father,
and rolled the stone again to the entrance.

But even his hammer, his only possession, I dared not keep. Even should
I tell the monks I had found it, or bought it from sailors--they would
not have left it with me, for strong heathen victory runes were
engraved on the haft.

So I laid then the hammer also close to the right hand of the dead.
"Guard it for me, dear father," I said, "till I need it again. Then
will I fetch it."

But from that hour there came a great change over my disposition.

That which had most delighted me, to fight for my sheep with wolves,
bears, and birds of prey--that attracted me no more.

Rather the question which had driven my dear father even to madness, if
there be a God, or Gods? And how it could be that such fearful things
should come to pass as are here set down in this history, from the vow
upon the Bragi cup, on to this great horror, that the son had slain his
own father. These questionings seized upon me, and would not let me
rest, any more than my dear father.

And as my dear father of yore looked up to the stars, and implored the
heathen Gods for enlightenment, so also did I look up to the stars for
illumination, praying to Christ and the saints.

But to me also the heavens were dumb.

Then I said to myself--"Here on the sheep pastures, and from the roar
of the sea, and from the light of the stars, wilt thou find no answer
all thy life long, any more than thy dear father.

"But in the books of the monks, the Latin ones and those others, with
the crinkled runic flourishes, lie hidden all holy and worldly wisdom.

"And when thou can'st read them, all will be clear to thee in heaven
and upon earth."

And so I took leave of my dear father, gathered my sheep together, and
drove them to the monastery.

"Art thou gone mad, Irenaeus?" asked the porter, as he opened the door
for me and my bleating charge, "that thou drivest home before shearing
time. They will scourge thee again."

"I was mad," I replied, "but now I will become a scholar. Now another
may scare the wolves. I will learn Greek."

And thus I also said to the good Abbot Aelfrik, before whom I was at
once led for ch