it shall be
Swanhild the Fatherless. Nevertheless that is my price. Pay it if thou
wilt."

"Read me the dream and I will name the child."

"Nay, first name thou the babe: for then no harm shall come to her at
thy hands."

So Asmund took the child, poured water over her, and named her.

Then Groa spoke: "This lord, is the reading of thy dream, else my wisdom
is at fault: The silver dove is thy daughter Gudruda, the golden snake
is my daughter Swanhild, and these two shall hate one the other and
strive against each other. But the swan is a mighty man whom both shall
love, and, if he love not both, yet shall belong to both. And thou shalt
send him away; but he shall return and bring bad luck to thee and thy
house, and thy daughter shall be blind with love of him. And in the end
he shall slay the eagle, a great lord from the north who shall seek to
wed thy daughter, and many another shall he slay, by the help of that
raven with the bill of steel who shall be with him. But Swanhild shall
triumph over thy daughter Gudruda, and this man, and the two of them,
shall die at her hands, and, for the rest, who can say? But this is
true--that the mighty man shall bring all thy race to an end. See now, I
have read thy rede."

Then Asmund was very wroth. "Thou wast wise to beguile me to name thy
bastard brat," he said; "else had I been its death within this hour."

"This thou canst not do, lord, seeing that thou hast held it in thy
arms," Groa answered, laughing. "Go rather and lay out Gudruda the Fair
on Coldback Hill; so shalt thou make an end of the evil, for Gudruda
shall be its very root. Learn this, moreover: that thy dream does not
tell all, seeing that thou thyself must play a part in the fate. Go,
send forth the babe Gudruda, and be at rest."

"That cannot be, for I have sworn to cherish it, and with an oath that
may not be broken."

"It is well," laughed Groa. "Things will befall as they are fated; let
them befall in their season. There is space for cairns on Coldback and
the sea can shroud its dead!"

And Asmund went thence, angered at heart.

II

HOW ERIC TOLD HIS LOVE TO GUDRUDA IN THE SNOW ON COLDBACK

Now, it must be told that, five years before the day of the death of
Gudruda the Gentle, Saevuna, the wife of Thorgrimur Iron-Toe, gave birth
to a son, at Coldback in the Marsh, on Ran River, and when his father
came to look upon the child he called out aloud:

"Here we have a wondrous bairn, for his