s a pleasure to her to sprinkle with her white hands the reeking
blood of the horse slaughtered for an offering. She would bite, in her
barbarous sport, the neck of the black-cock which was to be
slaughtered by the sacrificial priest; and to her foster-father she
said in positive earnestness,--

"If your enemy were to come and cast ropes over the beams that support
the roof, and drag them down upon your chamber whilst you were
sleeping, I would not awaken you if I could--I would not hear it--the
blood would tingle as it does now in that ear on which, years ago, you
dared to give me a blow. I remember it well."

But the Viking did not believe she spoke seriously. Like every one
else, he was fascinated by her extreme beauty, and never troubled
himself to observe if the mind of little Helga were in unison with her
looks. She would sit on horseback without a saddle, as if grown fast
to the animal, and go at full gallop; nor would she spring off, even
if her horse and other ill-natured ones were biting each other.
Entirely dressed as she was, she would cast herself from the bank into
the strong current of the fiord, and swim out to meet the Viking when
his boat was approaching the land. Of her thick, splendid hair she had
cut off the longest lock, and plaited for herself a string to her bow.

"Self-made is well made," she said.

The Viking's wife, according to the manners and customs of the age in
which she lived, was strong in mind, and decided in purpose; but with
her daughter she was like a soft, timid woman. She was well aware that
the dreadful child was under the influence of sorcery.

And Helga apparently took a malicious pleasure in frightening her
mother. Often when the latter was standing on the balcony, or walking
in the courtyard, Helga would place herself on the side of the well,
throw her arms up in the air, and then let herself fall headlong into
the narrow, deep hole, where, with her frog nature, she would duck and
raise herself up again, and then crawl up as if she had been a cat,
and run dripping of water into the grand saloon, so that the green
rushes which were strewed over the floor partook of the wet stream.

There was but one restraint upon little Helga--that was the _evening
twilight_. In it she became quiet and thoughtful--would allow herself
to be called and guided; then too, she would seem to feel some
affection for her mother; and when the sun sank, and the outer and
inward change took place,