e
and by thy side, be it right or wrong, when the Thing decides for war."

"Well said, friend! but come, drink deeper. Why, I have taken thee down
three pegs already!" said Ulf, glancing into Haldor's tankard. "Ho!
Hilda; fetch hither more ale, lass, and fill--fill to the brim." The
toast was drunk with right good will by all--from Ulf down to the
youngest house-carle at the lowest end of the great hall.

"And now, Guttorm," continued Ulf, turning to the bluff old warrior,
"since thou hast shown thy readiness to rebuke, let us see thy
willingness to entertain. Sing us a stave or tell us a saga, kinsman,
as well thou knowest how, being gifted with more than a fair share of
the scald's craft."

The applause with which this proposal was received by the guests and
house-carles who crowded the hall from end to end proved that they were
aware of Guttorm's gifts, and would gladly hear him. Like a sensible
man he complied at once, without affecting that air of false diffidence
which is so common among modern songsters and story-tellers.

"I will tell you," said the old man--having previously wet his lips at a
silver tankard, which was as bluff and genuine as himself--"of King
Gundalf's wooing. Many years have gone by since I followed him on
viking cruise, and Gundalf himself has long been feasting in Odin's
hall. I was a beardless youth when I joined him. King Gundalf of
Orkedal was a goodly man, stout and brisk, and very strong. He could
leap on his horse without touching stirrup with all his war gear on; he
could fight as well with his left hand as with his right, and his
battle-axe bit so deep that none who once felt its edge lived to tell of
its weight. He might well be called a Sea-king, for he seldom slept
under a sooty roof timber. Withal he was very affable to his men,
open-hearted, and an extremely handsome man.

"One summer he ordered us to get ready to go on viking cruise. When we
were all a-boun we set sail with five longships and about four hundred
men, and fared away to Denmark, where we forayed and fought a great
battle with the inhabitants. King Gundalf gained the victory,
plundered, wasted, and burned far and wide in the land, and made
enormous booty. He returned with this to Orkedal. Here he found his
wife at the point of death, and soon after she died. Gundalf felt his
loss so much that he had no pleasure in Raumsdal after that. He
therefore took to his ships and went again a-plundering.