o the
river Fyri he then rode to Upsala, and with him his twelve Berserks,
without any truce guaranteed. Yrsa, his mother, welcomed him, and led
him, not to the King's hall, but to a lodging. There fires were lighted
for them and ale given them to drink.

[Illustration:
'He fleeth not the flame
Who leapeth o'er the same']

Then some men of King Adils came in and threw billets of wood on the
fire, and made such a blaze that it scorched the clothes of Rolf's
company. And they said: 'Is it true that Rolf Stake and his Berserks
flee neither fire nor iron?' Then up leapt Rolf and all his twelve, and
he crying,

'Heap we yet higher
Adils' house-fire,'

took his shield and cast it on the fire, and leapt thereover, crying yet
again,

'He fleeth not the flame
Who leapeth o'er the same.'

Likewise one after the other did all his men. Then they seized those who
had heaped up the fire, and cast them thereon.

And now came Yrsa and gave to Rolf Stake a deer's horn filled with gold,
and therewith the ring Sviagriss, and bade them ride away to their
fleet. They leapt on their horses and rode down to Fyris-field. Soon
they saw that King Adils rode after them with his force fully armed,
purposing to slay them. Whereupon Rolf Stake, plunging his right hand
into the horn, took of the gold and sowed it all over the path. But when
the Swedes saw that, they leapt from their saddles and gathered each
what he could get; but King Adils bade them ride on, and himself rode at
speed. Slungnir his horse was named, of all horses the fleetest.

Then Rolf Stake, when he saw that King Adils rode near him, took the
ring Sviagriss and threw it to him, and bade him accept the gift. King
Adils rode to the ring, and lifting it on his lowered spear-point slid
it up along the shaft. Then did Rolf Stake turn him back, and, seeing
how he louted low, cried: 'Now have I made Sweden's greatest grovel
swine-wise.'

So they parted.

For this reason gold is by poets called 'the seed of Stake' or 'of
Fyris-field.'

FOOTNOTE:

[33] From Snorri's _Edda_, cap. 44.

_THE WRECK OF THE 'WAGER'_

THE Honourable John Byron, grandfather of the poet, was a celebrated
British Admiral who in almost all his voyages fell in with such rough
weather that his sailors nicknamed him 'Foul-weather Jack.'

When he was seventeen years old he served as midshipman in the 'Wager,'
a vessel attache