as very indignant, and mindful of his oath to avenge all
Njorfe's wrongs, he banished the young murderer. The other brothers,
on hearing this sentence, vowed that they would accompany the exile,
and so Viking sorrowfully bade them farewell, giving his sword
Angurvadel to Thorsten, the eldest, and cautioning him to remain
quietly on an island in Lake Wener until all danger of retaliation
on the part of Njorfe's remaining sons should be over.

The young men obeyed; but Njorfe's sons were determined to avenge
their brother, and although they had no boats to convey them over
the lake, they made use of a conjurer's art to bring about a great
frost. Accompanied by many armed men, they then stole noiselessly
over the ice to attack Thorsten and his brothers, and a terrible
carnage ensued. Only two of the attacking party managed to escape,
but they left, as they fancied, all their foes among the dead.

Then came Viking to bury his sons, and he found that two of them,
Thorsten and Thorer, were still alive; whereupon he secretly conveyed
them to a cellar beneath his dwelling, and in due time they recovered
from their wounds.

Njorfe's two surviving sons soon discovered by magic arts that their
opponents were not dead, and they made a second desperate but vain
attempt to kill them. Viking saw that the quarrel would be incessantly
renewed if his sons remained at home; so he now sent them to Halfdan,
whose court they reached after a series of adventures which in many
points resemble those of Theseus on his way to Athens.

When spring came round Thorsten embarked on a piratical excursion,
in the course of which he encountered Jokul, Njorfe's eldest son,
who, meanwhile, had taken forcible possession of the kingdom of Sogn,
having killed the king, banished his heir, Bele, and changed his
beautiful daughter, Ingeborg, into the similitude of an old witch.

Throughout the story Jokul is represented as somewhat of a coward,
for he resorted by preference to magic when he wished to injure
Viking's sons. Thus he stirred up great tempests, and Thorsten,
after twice suffering shipwreck, was only saved from the waves by
the seeming witch, whom he promised to marry in gratitude for her
good offices. Thorsten, advised by Ingeborg, now went in search of
Bele, whom he found and replaced upon his hereditary throne, having
sworn eternal friendship with him. After this, the baleful spell was
removed, and Ingeborg, now revealed in her native beauty,