bards, 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 se