tified should he succeed in exciting interest in the troubled lives
of our Norse forefathers, and still more so if his difficult experiment
brings readers to the Sagas--to the prose epics of our own race. Too
ample, too prolix, too crowded with detail, they cannot indeed vie in
art with the epics of Greece; but in their pictures of life, simple and
heroic, they fall beneath no literature in the world, save the Iliad and
the Odyssey alone.

ERIC BRIGHTEYES

I

HOW ASMUND THE PRIEST FOUND GROA THE WITCH

There lived a man in the south, before Thangbrand, Wilibald's son,
preached the White Christ in Iceland. He was named Eric Brighteyes,
Thorgrimur's son, and in those days there was no man like him for
strength, beauty and daring, for in all these things he was the first.
But he was not the first in good-luck.

Two women lived in the south, not far from where the Westman Islands
stand above the sea. Gudruda the Fair was the name of the one, and
Swanhild, called the Fatherless, Groa's daughter, was the other. They
were half-sisters, and there were none like them in those days, for they
were the fairest of all women, though they had nothing in common except
their blood and hate.

Now of Eric Brighteyes, of Gudruda the Fair and of Swanhild the
Fatherless, there is a tale to tell.

These two fair women saw the light in the self-same hour. But Eric
Brighteyes was their elder by five years. The father of Eric was
Thorgrimur Iron-Toe. He had been a mighty man; but in fighting with a
Baresark,[*] who fell upon him as he came up from sowing his wheat, his
foot was hewn from him, so that afterwards he went upon a wooden leg
shod with iron. Still, he slew the Baresark, standing on one leg and
leaning against a rock, and for that deed people honoured him much.
Thorgrimur was a wealthy yeoman, slow to wrath, just, and rich in
friends. Somewhat late in life he took to wife Saevuna, Thorod's
daughter. She was the best of women, strong in mind and second-sighted,
and she could cover herself in her hair. But these two never loved each
other overmuch, and they had but one child, Eric, who was born when
Saevuna was well on in years.

[*] The Baresarks were men on whom a passing fury of battle
came; they were usually outlawed.

The father of Gudruda was Asmund Asmundson, the Priest of Middalhof. He
was the wisest and the wealthiest of all men who lived in the south
of Iceland in those days, owning many farm