t have we _not_, is the question. What shall I say? Ha! we
have _grapes_ there; and we do make _such_ a drink of them--Oh!--"

Here Tyrker screwed his face and figure into what was meant for a
condition of ecstasy.

"'Twere well that they had no grapes there, Tyrker," said Biarne, "for
if all be true that Karlsefin tells us of that drink, they would be
better without it."

"I wish I had it!" remarked Tyrker, pathetically.

"Well, it is said that we shall find grapes in Vinland," observed Swend,
"and as we are told there is everything else there that man can desire,
our new country will beat all the others put together,--so hurrah for
Vinland!"

The cheer was given with right good-will, and then Tyrker reminded Krake
of his promise to sing a song. Krake, whose jovial spirits made him
always ready for anything, at once struck up to a rattling ditty:--

THE DANISH KINGS.

One night when one o' the Irish Kings
Was sleeping in his bed,
Six Danish Kings--so Sigvat sings--
Came an' cut off his head.
The Irish boys they heard the noise,
And flocked unto the shore;
They caught the kings, and put out their eyes,
And left them in their gore.

_Chorus_--Oh! this is the way we served the kings,
An' spoiled their pleasure, the dirty things,
When they came to harry and flap their wings
Upon the Irish shore-ore,
Upon the Irish shore.

Next year the Danes took terrible pains
To wipe that stain away;
They came with a fleet, their foes to meet,
Across the stormy say.
Each Irish carl great stones did hurl
In such a mighty rain,
The Danes went down, with a horrible stoun,
An' never came up again!

Oh! this is the way, etcetera.

The men were still laughing and applauding Krake's song when Olaf, who
chanced to look over the bow of the vessel, started up and shouted
"Land, ho!" in a shrill voice, that rang through the whole ship.

Instantly, the poop and forecastle were crowded, and there, on the
starboard bow, they saw a faint blue line of hills far away on the
horizon. Olaf got full credit for having discovered the land first on
this occasion; and for some time everything else was forgotten in
speculations as to what this new land would turn out to be; but the
wind, which had been getting lighter every hour that day, died away
almost to a calm, so that, as there was no prospect of reaching the land
for some hours, the men gradually fell back to their old places and
oc