s. Ill may all
things go with thee, till thou knowest what a burning hall is like
for thyself. I rede thee to the open hillside ever, rather than
come beneath a roof; for as thou hast wrought this night, so shall
others do to thee."

Then rose a growl of wrath from Rognvald's men, but the great Jarl
bade them cease, and harm none in all the place. So he went down to
his ships with no more words and men said that he was ill at ease
and little content, for he had lost as many men as he had slain, so
stoutly fought my father and our courtmen, and had earned a curse,
moreover, which would make his nights uneasy for long enough.

Then as he went my mother bade me look well at him, that in days to
come I might know on whom to avenge my father's death. After that
she went to her own lands in the south, for she was a jarl's
daughter, and very rich.

Not long thereafter Harald Fairhair won all the land, and then
began the trouble of ruling it; and men began to leave Norway
because of the new laws, which seemed hard on them, though they
were good enough.

Now two of Jarl Rognvald's sons had been good friends of my father
before these troubles began, and one, Sigurd, had been lord over
the Orkney Islands, and had died there. The other, Jarl Einar, fell
out with Rognvald, his father, and we heard that he would take to
the viking path, and go to the Orkneys, to win back the jarldom
that Sigurd's death had left as a prey to masterless men and
pirates of all sorts. So my mother took me to him, and asked him
for the sake of old friendship to give me a place in his ship; for
I was fourteen now, and well able to handle weapons, being strong
and tall for my age, as were many of the sons of the old kingly
stocks.

So Einar took me, having had no part in his father's doings towards
us, and hating them moreover. He promised to do all that he might
towards making a good warrior and seaman of me; and he was ever
thereafter as a foster father to me, for my own had died in the
hall with Vemund. It was his wish to make amends thus, if he could,
for the loss his folk had caused me.

Of the next five years I need speak little, for in them I learned
the viking's craft well. We won the Orkneys from those who held
them, and my first fight was in Einar's ship, against two of the
viking's vessels. After that we dwelt in Sigurd's great house in
Kirkwall, and made many raids on the Sutherland and Caithness
shores. I saw some hard fighting there,