for the Scots are no babes
at weapon play.

Then when I was nineteen, and a good leader, as they said, the
words that my mother spoke to Jarl Rognvald came true, and he died
even as he had slain my father.

For Halfdan and Gudrod, Harald Fairhair's sons, deeming that the
Jarl stood in their way to power in Norway, burned him in his hall
by night, and so my feud was at an end. But the king would in
nowise forgive his sons for the slaying of his friend, and outlawed
them. Whereon Halfdan came and fell on us in the Orkneys; and that
was unlucky for him, for we beat him, and Jarl Einar avenged on him
his father's death.

Now through this it came to pass that I saw Norway for the last
time, for I went thither in Einar's best ship to learn if Harald
meant to make the Orkneys pay for the death of his son--which was
likely, for a son is a son even though he be an outlaw.

So I came to my mother's place first of all, and full of joy and
pleasant thoughts was I as we sailed into the well-remembered fiord
to seek the little town at its head. And when we came there, nought
but bitterest sorrow and wrath was ours; for the town was a black
heap of ruin, and the few men who were left showed me where the
kindly hands of the hill folk had laid my mother, the queen, in a
little mound, after the Danish vikings, who had fallen suddenly on
the place with fire and sword, had gone. They had grown thus bold
because the great jarl was dead, and the king's sons had left the
land without defence.

There I swore vengeance for this on every viking of Danish race
that I might fall in with; for I was wild with grief and rage, as
one might suppose. I set up a stone over the grave of my mother,
graving runes thereon that should tell who she was and also who
raised it; for I was skilled in the runic lore, having learned much
from one of Einar's older men who had known my father.

Thereafter we cruised among the islands northwards until we learned
that Harald was indeed upon us, and then I saw my last of Norway as
we headed south again, and the last hilltop sank beneath the sea's
rim astern of us. I did not know that so it would be at that
time--it is well that one sees not far into things to come--but
even now all my home seemed to be with Einar; and that also was not
to last long, as things went. How that came about I must tell, for
the end was that I came to Alfred the king.

When we came back to Kirkwall, I told the jarl all that I had don