randly dressed; she held a harp in her
hands, and was very sorrowful. The second was also finely dressed, but
younger in appearance, and also sat on a chair, but it was not so
grand as the first one's. The third stood beside them, and was very
pretty to look at; she had a green cloak over her other clothes, and
it was easy to see that she was maid to the other two.

[Footnote 32: From the Icelandic.]

After the King had looked at them for a little he went forward and
saluted them. The one that sat on the golden chair asked him who he
was and where he was going; and he told her all the story--how he was
a king, and had lost his queen, and was now on his way to Hetland the
Good, to ask the Queen of that country in marriage. She answered that
fortune had contrived this wonderfully, for pirates had plundered
Hetland and killed the King, and she had fled from the land in terror,
and had come hither after great trouble, and she was the very person
he was looking for, and the others were her daughter and maid. The
King immediately asked her hand; she gladly received his proposal and
accepted him at once. Thereafter they all set out, and made their way
to the ship; and after that nothing is told of their voyage until the
King reached his own country. There he made a great feast, and
celebrated his marriage with this woman; and after that things are
quiet for a time.

Hermod and Hadvor took but little notice of the Queen and her
daughter, but, on the other hand, Hadvor and the Queen's maid, whose
name was Olof, were very friendly, and Olof came often to visit Hadvor
in her castle. Before long the King went out to war, and no sooner was
he away than the Queen came to talk with Hermod, and said that she
wanted him to marry her daughter. Hermod told her straight and plain
that he would not do so, at which the Queen grew terribly angry, and
said that in that case neither should he have Hadvor, for she would
now lay this spell on him, that he should go to a desert island and
there be a lion by day and a man by night. He should also think always
of Hadvor, which would cause him all the more sorrow, and from this
spell he should never be freed until Hadvor burned the lion's skin,
and that would not happen very soon.

As soon as the Queen had finished her speech Hermod replied that he
also laid a spell on her, and that was, that as soon as he was freed
from her enchantments she should become a rat and her daughter a
mouse, and figh