than would serve once to appease their hunger. If they disobeyed,
the guardian gods of the spot would not let them depart. But the
seamen, more anxious to go on filling their bellies than to obey orders,
postponed counsels of safety to the temptations of gluttony, and loaded
the now emptied holds of their ships with the carcases of slaughtered
cattle. These beasts were very easy to capture, because they gathered in
amazement at the unwonted sight of men, their fears being made bold.
On the following night monsters dashed down upon the shore, filled the
forest with clamour, and beleaguered and beset the ships. One of them,
huger than the rest, strode over the waters, armed with a mighty club.
Coming close up to them, he bellowed out that they should never
sail away till they had atoned for the crime they had committed in
slaughtering the flock, and had made good the losses of the herd of the
gods by giving up one man for each of their ships. Thorkill yielded
to these threats; and, in order to preserve the safety of all by
imperilling a few, singled out three men by lot and gave them up.

This done, a favouring wind took them, and they sailed to further
Permland. It is a region of eternal cold, covered with very deep snows,
and not sensible to the force even of the summer heats; full of pathless
forests, not fertile in grain and haunted by beasts uncommon elsewhere.
Its many rivers pour onwards in a hissing, foaming flood, because of the
reefs imbedded in their channels.

Here Thorkill drew up his ships ashore, and bade them pitch their tents
on the beach, declaring that they had come to a spot whence the passage
to Geirrod would be short. Moreover, he forbade them to exchange any
speech with those that came up to them, declaring that nothing enabled
the monsters to injure strangers so much as uncivil words on their part:
it would be therefore safer for his companions to keep silence; none
but he, who had seen all the manners and customs of this nation before,
could speak safely. As twilight approached, a man of extraordinary
bigness greeted the sailors by their names, and came among them. All
were aghast, but Thorkill told them to greet his arrival cheerfully,
telling them that this was Gudmund, the brother of Geirrod, and the most
faithful guardian in perils of all men who landed in that spot. When the
man asked why all the rest thus kept silence, he answered that they were
very unskilled in his language, and were asha