hat
watches the second follows that, and so on until there are many kites
gathered."

"What if one comes late?"

"He swings overhead and screams, and goes back to his place; then no
more come."

"Ay," he said; "you will make a sailor yet, son Raven, for you watch
things. Now I will tell you what I saw today. There was the one kite
sailing over my head as I was at the ship garth, and presently it
screamed so that I looked up. Then it left its wide circles over the
town, and flew northward, straight as an arrow. Then from the southward
came another, following it, and after that another, and yet others, all
going north. And far off I could see where others flew, and they too
went north. And presently flapped over me the ravens in the wake of the
kites, and the great sea eagles came in screaming and went the same way,
and so for all the time that I was at the ship, and until I came home."

"There is a sacrifice to the Asir somewhere," I said, "for the birds of
Odin and Thor have always their share."

My father shook his head.

"The birds cry to one another, as I think, and say when the feast is but
enough for those that have gathered. They have cried now that there is
room for all at some great feasting. Once have I seen the like before,
and that was when I was with the ship guard when the jarl fought his
great battle in the Orkneys; we knew that he had fought by the same token."

But my mother said that I was surely right. There was no fear of battle
here, and indeed with Gunnar and Sigurd to guard the land we had had
peace for many a long year on our own coasts, if other lands had had to
fear them. My father laughed a little, saying that perhaps it was so,
and then my mother took the two little ones and went with them into the
sleeping room to put them to rest, while I and my two brothers went out
to the cattle garth to see that all was well for the night.

Then, when our eyes were used to the moonlight, which was not very
bright, away to the northward we saw a red glow that was not that of the
sunset or of the northern lights, dying down now and then, and then
again flaring up as will a far-off fire; and even as we looked we heard
the croak of an unseen raven flying thitherward overhead.

"Call father," I said to Withelm, who was the youngest of us three. The
boy ran in, and presently my father came out and looked long at the glow
in the sky.

"Even as I thought," he said. "The king's town is burning, and I m