"Then he leaped into King Arnvid's boat"
King Harald's ship lay prow to prow with King Arnvid's. The battle had beengoing on for an hour. King Harald was still in the stern on the deck. There was a dent in his helmet where a great stone had struck. There was a gash in his shoulder where a spear had cut. But he was still fighting and laughed as he worked.
"Wolf meets wolf to-day," he said. "But things are going badly in the prow," he cried. "Ivar fallen, Thorstein wounded, a dozen men lying in the bottom of the boat!"
He leaped down from the deck and ran along the gunwale, shouting as he went:
"Harald and victory!"
So he came to the bow and stood swinging his sword as fast as he breathed. Every time it hit a man of Arnvid's men. Harald's own warriors cheered, seeing him.
"Harald and victory!" they shouted, and went to work again with good heart.
Slowly King Arnvid's men fell back before Harald's biting sword. Then Harald's men threw a great hook into that boat and pulled it alongside and still pushed King Arnvid's people back.
"Come on! Follow me!" cried Harald.
Then he leaped into King Arnvid's boat, and his warriors followed him.
"He comes like a mad wolf," King Arnvid's men said, and they turned and ran back below the deck.
Then Arnvid himself leaped down and stood with his sword raised.
"Can this young Shockhead make cowards of you all?" he cried.
But Harald's sword struck him, and he fell dead. Then a big, bloody viking of King Arnvid leaped upon the edge of the ship and stood there. He held his drinking-horn and his sword high in his hands.
"Ran[9]and not you, Shockhead, shall have them and me!" he cried, and leaped laughing into the water and was drowned.
Many other warriors chose the same death on that terrible day.
All along the line of boats men fought for hours. In some places the cables had been cut, and the boats had drifted apart. Ships lay scattered about two by two, fighting. May boats sank, many mendied, some fled away in their ships, and at the end King Harald had won the battle. So he had King Arnvid's country and King Audbiorn's country. Many men took the oath and became his friends. All people were talking of his wonderful battles.
FOOTNOTES:[9]See note aboutRanon page198.
[9]See note aboutRanon page198.
[9]See note aboutRanon page198.
Ithad taken King Harald ten years to fight so many battles. And all that time he had not cut his hair or combed it. Now he was feasting one day at an earl's house. Many people were there.
"How is it, friends?" Harald said. "Have I kept my vow?"
His friends answered:
"You have kept your vow. There is no king but you in all Norway."
"Then I think I will cut my hair," the king laughed.
So he went and bathed and put on fresh clothes. Then the earl cut his hair and beard and combed them and put a gold band about his head. Then he looked at him and said:
"It is beautiful, smooth, and yellow."
And all people wondered at the beauty of the king's hair.
"I will give you a new name," the earl said. "You shall no longer be calledShockhead. You shall be called Harald Hairfair."
"I, Harald, King of Norway, take you Gyda, for my wife"
"It is a good name," everybody cried.
Then Harald said:
"But I have another thing to do now. Guthorm, you shall take the same message to Gyda that you gave ten years ago."
So Guthorm went and brought back this answer from Gyda:
"I will marry the king of all Norway."
So when the wedding time came, Harald rode across the country to the home of Gyda's father, Eric. Many men followed him. They were all richly dressed in velvet and gold.
For three nights they feasted at Eric's house. On the next night Gyda sat on the cross-bench with her women. A long veil of white linen covered her face and head and hung down to the ground. After the mead-horns had been brought in, Eric stood up from his high seat and went down and stood before King Harald.
"Will you marry Gyda now?" he asked.
Harald jumped to his feet and laughed.
"Yes," he said. "I have waited long enough."
Then he stepped down from his high seat and stood by Eric. They walked about the hall. Before them walked thralls carrying candles. Behind them walked many of King Harald's great earls. Three times they walked around the hall. The third time they stopped before the cross-bench. King Harald and Eric stepped upon the platform, where the cross-bench was.
Eric gave a holy hammer to Harald, and it was like the hammer of Thor. Harald put it upon Gyda's lap, saying:
"With this holy hammer of Thor's, I, Harald, King of Norway, take you, Gyda, for my wife."
Then he took a bunch of keys and tied it to Gyda's girdle, saying:
"This is the sign that you are mistress of my house."
After that, Eric called out loudly:
"Now, are Harald, King of Norway, and Gyda, daughter of Eric, man and wife."
Then thralls brought meat and drink in golden dishes. They were about to serve it to Gyda for the bride's feast, but Harald took the dish from them and said:
"No, I will serve my bride."
So he knelt and held the platter. When he did that his men shouted. Then they talked among themselves, saying:
"Surely Harald never knelt before. It is always other people who kneel to him."
When the bride had tasted the food and touched the mead-horn to her lips she stood up and walked from the hall. All her women followed her, but the men stayed and feasted long.
On the next morning at breakfast Gyda sat by Harald's side. Soon the king rose and said:
"Father-in-law, our horses stand ready in the yard. Work is waiting for me at home and on the sea. Lead out the bride."
So Eric took Gyda by the hand and led her out of the hall. Harald followed close. When they passed through the door Eric said:
"With this hand I lead my daughter out of my house and give her to you, Harald, son of Halfdan, to be your wife. May all the gods make you happy!"
Harald led his bride to the horse and lifted her up and set her behind his saddle and said:
"Now this Gyda is my wife."
Then they drank the stirrup-horn and rode off.
"Everything comes to King Harald," his men said; "wife and land and crown and victory in battle. He is a lucky man."
Nowmany men hated King Harald. Many a man said:
"Why should he put himself up for king of all of us? He is no better than I am. Am I not a king's son as well as he? And are not many of us kings' sons? I will not kneel before him and promise to be his man. I will not pay him taxes. I will not have his earl sitting over me. The good old days have gone. This Norway has become a prison. I will go away and find some other place."
So hundreds of men sailed away. Some went to France and got land and lived there. Big Rolf-go-afoot and all his men sailed up the great French River and won a battle against the French king himself. There was no way to stop the flashing of his battle-axes but to give him what he wanted. So the king made Rolf a duke, gave him broad lands and gave him the king's own daughter forwife. Rolf called his country Normandy, for old Norway. He ruled it well and was a great lord, and his sons' sons after him were kings of England.
"In Norway they left burning houses and weeping women"
Other Norsemen went to Ireland and England and Scotland. They drew up their boats on the river banks. The people ran away before them and gathered into great armies that marched back to meet the vikings in battle. Sometimes the Norsemen lost, but oftener they won, so that they got land and lived in those countries. Their houses sat in these strange lands like warriors' camps, and the Norsemen went among their new neighbors with hanging swords and spears in hand, ever ready for fight.
There are many islands north of Scotland. They are called the Orkneys and the Shetlands. They have many good harbors for ships. They are little and rocky and bare of trees. Wild sea-birds scream around them. On some of them a man can stand in the middle and see the ocean all about him. Now the vikings sailed to these islands and were pleased.
"It is like being always in a boat," they said. "This shall be our home."
So it went until all the lands round about were covered with vikings. Norse carved and painted houses brightened the hillsides. Viking ships sailed all the seas and made harbor in every river. Norsemen's thralls plowed the soil and planted crops and herded cattle, and gold flowed into their masters' treasure-chests. Norse warriors walked up and down the land, and no man dared to say them nay.
These men did not forget Norway. In the summers they sailed back there and harried the coast. They took gold and grain and beautiful cloth back to their homes. In Norway they left burning houses and weeping women.
Every summer King Harald had out his ships and men and hunted these vikings. There are many little islands about Norway. They have crags and caves and deep woods. Here the vikings hid when they saw King Harald's ships coming. But Harald ran his boat into every creek and fiord and hunted in every cave and through all the woods andamong the crags. He caught many men, but most of them got away and went home laughing at Harald. Then they came back the next summer and did the same deeds over again. At last King Harald said:
"There is but one thing to do. I must sail to these western islands and whip these robbers in their own homes."
So he went with a great number of ships. He found as brave men as he had brought from Norway. These vikings had brought their old courage to their new homes. King Harald's fine ships were scarred by viking stones and scorched by viking fire. The shields of Harald's warriors had dents from viking blows. Many of those men carried viking scars all their lives. And many of King Harald's warriors walked the long, hard road to Valhalla, and feasted there with some of these very vikings that had died in King Harald's battles. But after many hard fights on land and sea, after many men had died and many had fled away to other lands, King Harald won, and he made the men that were yetin the islands take the oath, and he left his earls to rule over them. Then he went back to Norway.
"He has done more than he vowed to do," people said. "He has not only whipped the vikings, but he has got a new kingdom west-over-seas."
Then they talked of that dream that his mother had.
"King Harald was that great tree," they said. "The trunk was red with the blood of his many battles, but higher up the limbs were fair and green like this good time of peace. The topmost branches were white because Harald will live to be an old man. Just as that tree spread out until all of Norway was in its shade, and even more lands, so Harald is king of all this country and of the western islands. The many branches of that tree are the many sons of Harald, who shall be earls and kings in Norway, and their sons after them, for hundreds of years."
Menhad been feasting in Ingolf's house. But there was no laughing and no shouting of jokes. Ingolf sat in his high seat frowning and gloomy. His head hung on his breast. He was staring into the fire. Now he raised his head and looked about the hall.
"Comrades," he said, "what shall we do? Herstein and Holmstein died by our swords. Their kinsmen hunger to kill us. Besides, when Harald hears of our deed, there will not be a safe place in Norway for us. He will never let a man fight out an honest quarrel. Where shall we go?"
A man stood up from the bench.
"We have friends in the Shetlands," he said. "Let us find homes there."
Then Leif, in the high seat opposite Ingolf, stood up.
"No, not the Shetlands, my foster-brother.[10]They are crowded already.Besides, Harald will not long keep his hands off them. Then they will be no better than Norway. England and Ireland and Scotland are old. My eyes ache for something new. What of that far island that Floki found? It is empty. We could choose our land from the whole country. There is good fishing. There are green valleys. And Butter Thorolf says that butter drops from every weed. There are mountains and deserts where we may find adventure. I say, let us steer for Iceland!"
When he stopped, many of the men shouted:
"Yes! Iceland!"
But an old man stood up.
"We have all laughed at that tale of Butter Thorolf's," he said. "But Floki himself said that the sea about the island is full of ice that pushes upon the land, that no ship can live in that water in the winter, that great mountains of ice cover the island. Did not all his cattle die there of hunger and cold, and did he not come back to Norway cursing Iceland?"
"Oh, Sighvat, you are old and fearful," called out Leif, and he laughed.
Then he stretched himself up and threw back his head.
"Are we afraid of ice? Have we not seen angry water before? I have been hungry, but I have never died of it. Surely if there are fish in the sea and grass in the valleys, we can live there. I should like to stand on a hill and look around on a wide land and think, 'This is all ours,' and out upon a rough sea and think, 'Far off there are our foes and they dare not come over to us.' Besides, we shall have no Shockhead Harald to lord it over us. We can come and go and feast and fight as we please. We shall be our own kings. And our ships will be always waiting to take us away, when we are weary of it. And we shall see things that other men have never seen. I am tired of the old things. Perhaps in after days men will make songs about 'those foster-brothers, Ingolf and Leif, who made a new country in a wonderful land, and whose sons and grandsons are mighty men in Iceland!'"
Ingolf leaped up from his chair.
"By the strong arm of Thor!" he cried, "I like the sound of it. Now I make my vow."
He raised his drinking-horn.
"I vow that I will find this Iceland and pass the winter there, and that if man can live upon it I will go back there and set up my home."
"And I vow that I will follow my foster-brother," cried Leif.
And many men vowed to go.
So on the next day they began to make ready a boat. They looked her over carefully and recalked every seam and freshly painted her and put into her their strongest oars and made her a new sail.
"This will be the longest voyage that she ever made," Ingolf said.
When the work was done, they put into her great stores, axes, hammers, fish-nets, cooking-kettles, kegs of ale, chests of hard bread, chests of smoked meat, brass kettles full of flour, skin bottles of water. They stowed these things away in the ends of the ship. When they were ready they put in four head of cattle.
"We shall need the milk and perhaps the meat," Ingolf said.
Many men wished to go, but Ingolf had said:
"There is little room to spare and little food and drink. I have planned for half a year. But perhaps we must be sailing longer than that. Our food may run short. We must not have extra mouths to feed. There are thirty oars in our boat. I will take only one man for every oar, and Leif and I will steer."
So they started off. Leif stood in the prow leaning forward and looking far ahead, and he sang:
"What does the swimming dragon smell?A stormy sea, an empty land,Hunger, darkness, giants, fire.Leif and his sword do laugh at that."
They sailed for days and saw no land. Sometimes they passed ships and always made sure to sail close enough to hail them.
"Where are you going?" Ingolf would call.
"To Norway," would come back the answer.
"For trade or fight?" Leif would shout.
Then would ring out a great laugh from that boat and this answer:
"A shut mouth is a good friend."
So the two ships sailed on, and the men were glad to have heard a greeting and to have called one.
But at last there were the Shetlands.
"We will go in here and rest," Ingolf said.
When they rowed to shore a certain Shetland man stood there. He watched them land and looked them all over. Then he walked up to Ingolf and said:
"You look like brave men. Welcome to Shetland. You shall come to my house and rest your legs from ship-going and fill your stomachs. I hunger for news of Norway."
So they went to his house and stayed there for three days. And good it seemed to be near a fire and in a quiet bed and before a steaming platter. When they went to the shore to start off again, the Shetland man had his thralls carry a keg of ale and a great kettle of cooked meat and put them into the ship.
"Think of me when you eat this," he said.
Then the Norsemen put to sea again and sailed for a long time.
One day a terrible storm came up; the sky was black; the wind howled through the ship. Great waves leaped in the sea.
"Down with the sail and out with the oars!" Ingolf shouted.
So the men furled the sail and took down the mast and laid it along the bottom of the boat. As they worked, one man was washed overboard and drowned. The men sat down to row, but the tumbling waves tossed the boat about and poured over her and broke three of the oars. But still the men held on. They were wet to the skin and were cold, and their arms and legs ached with the hard work, and they were hungry from the long waiting, but not one face was white with fear.
"Ran, in her caves under sea, wants us for company to-night," Ingolf laughed.
So they tossed about all night, but in the morning the wind died down. Great waves still rolled, and for days the seawas rough, but they could put up the sail. Then one day Leif, as he sat in the pilot's seat, jumped to his feet and sang:
"To eyes grown tired with looking far,All at once appeared an island,A stretching-place for sea-legs,A quiet bed for backs grown stiffOn rowing-bench on rolling sea.A place to build a red fireAnd thaw the blood that sea-winds froze."
But when they came near they saw no place to land. The island was like a mountain of rock standing out of the water. The sides were steep and smooth. They sailed around it, but found no place to climb up.
"There are many other islands here," said Leif. "We will try another."
So he steered to another. It, too, was a steep rock, but one side sloped down to the water and was green with grass.
"Oh, I have not seen anything so good as that green grass since I looked into my mother's face," one man said.
There was a little harbor there. The men rowed in and quickly jumped out and put the rollers under the ship and pulledher upon shore. Then they threw themselves down on the grass and rolled and stretched their arms and shouted for joy. After that they built a fire and warmed themselves and cooked a meal and ate like wolves. They slept there that night.
In the morning before Ingolf's men started away they were standing high up on the hillside, looking about. They saw no houses on any of the islands, but they saw smoke rise from one hillside.
"Some other men, like us, weary of the sea and stopping to rest," said Ingolf.
They saw the island that they had sailed around the night before.
"There can surely be nothing but birds' nests on top of that," Sighvat said.
"Look!" cried another, pointing.
Men were standing on the flat top of that island. They were letting a boat down the steep side with ropes. When it struck the water, they made a rope fast to the rock and slid down it into the ship and sailed off.
"Some robber vikings from Scotland or Ireland," laughed Leif. "It is a good hiding place for treasure."
Soon Ingolf and his men got into their ship and were off. Old Sighvat grumbled.
"Is this land not new enough and empty enough and far enough? I am tired of sea, sea, sea, and nothing else."
"We started for Iceland," said Ingolf, "and I will not stop before I come there. I have a vow. Did you make none, Sighvat?"
Then they were on the water again for weeks with no sight of land.
"Oh! I would give my right hand to see a dragon pawing the water off there and to fling a word to its men," Sighvat said.
"No hope of that," replied Ingolf. "Only three dragons before ours have ever swept this water, and men are not sailing this way for pleasure or riches."
So only the desolate sea stretched around them. Sometimes it was smooth and shining under the sun. Often it was torn by winds, and a gray sky hung over it, and the men were drenched with rain. Once they ran into a fog. For three days and nights they could not see sun or stars to steer by. They forgot which way was north. When after three days the foglifted, they found that they had been going in the wrong direction, and they had to turn around and sail all that weary way over again. But at last one afternoon they saw a white cloud resting on the water far off. As they sailed toward it, it grew into long stretches of black, hilly shore with a blue ice mountain rising from it. The sun was going down behind that mountain, and long lines of pink and of shining green, and great purple shadows streaked the blue.
"It is Iceland!" shouted the men.
"It is like Asgard the Shining," Ingolf said.
But it was still far off. Men can see a long way there because the air is so clear. So Ingolf and his people sailed on for hours and at last came into a harbor. A little green valley sloped up from it. On one side was the bright ice mountain. Back of it were bare black and red hills. In that valley Ingolf and his men drew up their boat and camped. At supper that night one of the men said:
"I almost think I never felt a fire before or had warm food in my mouth."
The men laughed.
"It is four months since we left Norway," Ingolf said. "Few men have ever been on the sea so long."
That night they put up the awning in the boat and slept under it.
After that some men went fishing every day in the rowboat that they had. And Ingolf took others, and they sailed along the shore, seeing what kind of a land this was. But winter began to come on. Then Ingolf said:
"Remember what Floki said of the ice and the rough sea in winter. Soon we cannot sail any longer. Let us choose a place to stay and build a hut there and cut hay for our cattle."
So they did. Their hut was a little mean thing of stones and turf. They kept the cattle and the hay in it. Sometimes they slept there, when it was very cold. But most of the time they ate and slept by a great bonfire out of doors where it was clean. Leif said:
"I like the cold air of the sea better than the bad-smelling air of a house, even though it is warm."
Now every day Ingolf and Leif and some of the men walked about the island. At night they all sat around the campfire and talked of what they had seen during the day.
"This is surely a wonderful land," Ingolf said once. "It is at the same time like Niflheim and like Asgard. Here is a spot green and soft, a sweet cradle for men. Next it is a mountain of ice where men would freeze to death. And next to that is a hill of rock that seems to have come out of some great fire. Yesterday I saw a cave on the seashore. The door of it was big enough for a giant. The waves broke at the doorstep. A terrible roaring came from the cave. I think it is the home of a giant. I think that giants of fire and giants of frost made this island. I have seen great basins in the rocks filled with warm water. They looked like giants' bath-tubs. I have seen boiling water shoot up out of the ground. I have walked, and have felt and heard a great rumbling under me as though some giant were sleeping there and turning over in his sleep. One dayI stood on a mountain and looked inland. There was a wide desert of sand and black and red rock with nothing growing on it. The fierce wind blew dirt into my eyes, and the cold of it froze the marrow in my bones. When I have seen these things I have cursed the country, and have said: 'The gods hate Iceland. I will not stay here.' But then I have walked through beautiful warm valleys where the winds did not come. I saw in my mind the flowers that we found last summer. I saw our cattle feeding on the sweet grass. I thought of the sea full of good fish. I saw my house built among green fields, and my wife sitting in her home, and my children playing among the flowers and making up tales about the bright ice mountains. I saw the wide, rough seas between me and Harald and our foes. Then I thought to myself, 'It is the sweetest home on earth.' As for me, I am coming here to live. What do you say, comrades?"
"Have I not vowed to follow you, foster-brother?" said Leif. "And indeed I never saw a land that I liked better.I don't believe in your giants. My sword is my god, and my ship is my temple, and I like this land to set them up in."
They sat about the fire long that night making plans.
"You shall go home and get our women and our things, Ingolf," said Leif. "I will off to Ireland and have a frolic. There will be little play of swords in this empty land, and I want to have one last game before I hang up my battle-knife. Besides, I will come to you with a ship full of gold and clothes and house-hangings such as we cannot get here, and they will cost me nothing but the swing of a sword."
As they talked, Ingolf looked up at the sky. The northern lights were quivering there. They were like great flames of yellow and green and red.
"See," he said, and pointed. "We are not so far that the gods will forget us. There is the flash of the armor of the Valkyrias.[11]A battle is on somewhere, and Odin has sent his maidens to choose the heroes for Valhalla."
Leif only laughed and lay down to sleep.
So in the spring they all went back to Norway. Leif got ready the boat again and merrily sailed for Ireland.
"Here I go to get riches for our new land," he said.
Ingolf set his men to cutting down pines in the forest and some to building a new ship. He had his thralls plant large crops of grain and grind flour and make new kegs and chests of wood. He himself worked much at the forge, making all kinds of tools—spades, axes, hammers, hunting-knives, cooking kettles. The women were busy weaving and sewing new clothes. Ingolf sold his house and land and everything that he could not take with him.
After about two years Leif came back. He had ten thralls that he had got in Ireland. He took Ingolf aboard his ship and raised the covers of great chests. Gold helmets, silver-trimmed drinking-horns, embroidered robes, and swords flashed out.
"Did I not say that I would come back with a full ship?" he laughed.
At last all things were ready for starting.
"To-day I will sacrifice to Thor and Odin," Ingolf said. "If the omens are good we will start to-morrow."
"Well, go, foster-brother," laughed Leif. "But I have better things to do. I will be putting the cattle into the ship and will have all ready."
So Ingolf and his men went into the forests a little way. There in a cleared space stood a large building. In front of this temple the men killed two horses for Odin. Ingolf caught some of the blood in a brass bowl. He raised it and looked up at the sky and said:
"All-wise and all-father Odin, and Thor who loves the thunder, I give these horses to you. Tell me whether it is your will that we go to Iceland."
As he said that, a raven flew over his head. Ingolf watched it.
"It is Odin's will that we go," he said. "He sent his raven[12]to tell us. It is flying straight toward Iceland."
The men shouted with joy at that.
Now they hung some of the meat of the horses on a tree near the temple.
"For the ravens of Odin," they said.
Ingolf carried the bowl of blood into the temple. He went through the feast hall in front to a little room at the back. Here stood wooden statues of the gods in a semicircle. Before them was a stone altar. Ingolf took a little brush of twigs that lay on it and dipped it into the blood and sprinkled the statues.
"You shall taste of our sacrifice," he said. "Look kindly on us from your happy seats in Asgard."
Then they went into the feast hall. There thralls were boiling the horseflesh in pots over the fire. The tables were standing ready before the benches. Ingolf walked to the high seat. All the others took their places at the benches. When the horns came round, Ingolf made this vow:
"I vow that I will build my house wherever these pillars lead me."
He put his hand upon a tall post that stood beside the high seat. There was one at each side. They were the front posts of the chair. But they stood up high, almost to the roof. They were wonderfully carved and painted with menand dragons. On the top of each one was a little statue of Thor with his hammer.
At the end of the feast Ingolf had his thralls dig these pillars up. He had a little bronze chest filled with the earth that was under the altar.
"I will take the pillars of my high seat to Iceland," he said, "and I will set up my altar there upon the soil of Norway, the soil that all my ancestors have trod, the soil that Thor loves."
So they carried the pillars and the chest of earth and the statues of the gods, and put them into Ingolf's boat.
"It is a well-packed ship," the men said. "There is no spot to spare."
Tools, and chests of food, and tubs of drink, and chests of clothes, and fishing nets were stowed in the bows of both boats. In the bottom were laid some long, heavy, hewn logs.
"The trees in Iceland are little," Ingolf said. "We must take the great beams for our homes with us."
Standing on these logs were a few cattle and sheep and horses and pigs.The rowers' benches were along the sides. In the stern of each boat was a little cabin. Here the women and children were to sleep. But the men would sleep on the timbers in the middle of the boat and perhaps they would put up the awning sometimes.
At last everyone was aboard. Men loosed the rope that held the boats. The ships flashed down the rollers into the water, and Ingolf and Leif were off for Iceland. As they sailed away everyone looked back at the shore of old Norway. There were tears in the women's eyes. Helga, Leif's wife, sang:
"There was I born. There was I wed.There are my father's bones.There are the hills and fields,The streams and rocks that I love.There are houses and temples,Women and warriors and feasts,Ships and songs and fights—A crowded, joyous land.I go to an empty land."
There was the same long voyage with storm and fog. But at last the people saw again the white cloud and saw it growing into land and mountains. ThenIngolf took the pillars of his high seat and threw them overboard.
"Guide them to a good place, O Thor!" he cried.
The waves caught them up and rolled them about. Ingolf followed them with his ship. But soon a storm came up. The men had to take down the sails and masts, and they could do nothing with their oars. The two ships tossed about in the sea wherever the waves sent them. The pillars drifted away, and Ingolf could not see them.
"Remember your pillars, O Thor!" he cried.
Then he saw that Leif's ship was being driven far off.
"Ah, my foster-brother," he thought, "shall I not have you to cheer me in this empty land? O Thor, let him not go down to the caves of Ran! He is too good a man for that."
On the next day the storm was not so hard, and Ingolf put in at a good harbor. A high rocky point stuck out into the sea. A broad bay with islands in the mouth was at the side. Behind the rocky pointwas a level green place with ice-mountains shining far back.
"Then he saw that Leif's ship was being driven afar off"
After a day or two Ingolf said:
"I will go look for my pillars."
So he and a few men got into the rowboat and went along the shore and into all the fiords, but they could not find the pillars. After a week they came back, and Ingolf said:
"I will build a house here to live in while I look for the posts. This way is uncomfortable for the women."
So he did. Then he set out again to look for the pillars, but he had no better luck and came back.
"I must stay at home and see to the making of hay and the drying of fish," he said. "Winter is coming on, and we must not be caught with nothing to eat."
So he stayed and worked and sent two of his thralls to look for the holy posts. They came back every week or two and always had to say that they had not found them. Midwinter was coming on.
"Ah!" said Ingolf's wife one day, "do you remember the gay feast that we hadat Yule-time? All our friends were there. The house rang with song and laughter. Our tables bent with good things to eat. Walls were hung with gay draperies. The floor was clean with sweet-smelling pine-branches. Now look at this mean house; its dirt floor, its bare stone walls, its littleness, its darkness! Look at our long faces. No one here could make a song if he tried. Oh! I am sick for dear old Norway."
"It is Thor's fault," Ingolf cried. "He will not let me find his posts."
He strode out of the house and stood scowling at the gray sea.
"Ah, foster-brother!" he said. "It was never so gloomy when you were by my side. Where are you now? Shall I never hear your merry laugh again? That spot in my palm burns, and my heart aches to see you. That arch of sod keeps rising before my eyes. Our vows keep ringing in my ears."
At last the long, gloomy winter passed and spring came.
"Cheer up, good wife," Ingolf said. "Better days are coming now."
But that same day the thralls came back from looking for the posts.
"We have bad news," they said. "As we walked along the shore looking for the pillars we saw a man lying on the shore. We went up to him. He was dead. It was Leif. Two well-built houses stood near. We went to them. We knew from the carving on the door-posts that they were Leif's. We went in. The rooms were empty. Along the shore and in the wood back of the house we found all of his men, dead. There was no living thing about."
Ingolf said no word, but his face was white, and his mouth was set. He went into the house and got his spears and his shield and said to his men:
"Follow me."
They put provisions into the boat and pushed off and sailed until they saw Leif's houses on the shore of the harbor. There they saw Leif and the men who were his friends, dead. Their swords and spears were gone. Ingolf walked through the houses calling on Helga and on the thralls, but no one answered.The storehouse was empty. The rich hangings were gone from the walls of the houses. There was nothing in the stables. The boat was gone.
Ingolf went out and stood on a high point of land that jutted out into the water. Far along the coast he saw some little islands. He turned to his men and said:
"The thralls have done it. I think we shall find them on those islands."
Then he went back to Leif and stood looking at him.
"What a shame for so brave a man to fall by the hands of thralls! But I have found that such things always happen to men who do not sacrifice to the gods. Ah, Leif! I did not think when we made those vows of foster-brotherhood that this would ever happen. But do not fear. I remember my promise. I had thought that a man's blood is precious in this empty land, but my vow is more precious."
Now they laid all those men together and tied on their hell-shoes.
"I need my sword for your sake, foster-brother. I cannot give you that. But youshall have my spears and my drinking-horn," said Ingolf. "For surely Odin has chosen you for Valhalla, even though you did not sacrifice. You are too good a man to go to Niflheim. You would make times merry in Valhalla."
So Ingolf put his spears and his drinking-horn by Leif. Then the men raised a great mound over all the dead. After that they went aboard their boat and sailed for the islands that Ingolf had seen. It was evening when they reached them.
"I see smoke rising from that one," Ingolf said, pointing.
He steered for it. It was a steep rock like that one in the Faroes, but they found a harbor and landed and climbed the steep hill and came out on top. They saw the ten thralls sitting about a bonfire eating. Helga and the other women from Leif's house sat near, huddled together, white and frightened. One of the thralls gave a great laugh and shouted:
"This is better than pulling Leif's plow. To-morrow we will sail for Ireland with all his wealth."
"To-morrow you will be freezing in Niflheim," cried Ingolf, and he leaped among them swinging his sword, and all his men followed him, and they killed those thralls.
Then Ingolf turned to Helga. She threw herself into his arms and wept. But after a while she told him this story:
"When springtime came, Leif thought that he would sow wheat. He had but one ox. The others had died during the winter. So he set the thralls to help pull the plow. I saw their sour looks and was afraid, but Leif only laughed:
"'What else can thralls expect?' he said. 'Never fear them, good wife.'
"Now one day soon after that the thralls came running to the house calling out:
"'The ox is dead! The ox is dead!'
"Leif asked them about it. They said that a bear had come out of the woods and killed it, and that they had scared the beast away. They pointed out where it had gone. Then Leif called his men and said:
"'A hunt! I had not hoped for such great sport here. Ah, we will have a feast off that bear!'
"So they took their spears and went out into the woods. As soon as they were gone, the thralls came running into the house and took down all the swords and shields from the wall and ran out. In some way they met my lord and his men in the woods and killed them. Then they came back and took everything in the house and dragged us to the boat and sailed here."
"O my brother!" said Ingolf, "where is that song about 'those two foster-brothers, Ingolf and Leif, who made a new country in a wonderful land, and whose sons and grandsons are mighty men in Iceland'? But come home with me, Helga."
So they took the women and Leif's things and Leif's boat and sailed home. The next day after they came to Ingolf's house, Helga said:
"We have made your family larger, brother Ingolf. Will you not take Leif's two houses and live in them? He doesnot need them now. He would like you to have them."
"It would be pleasant to live there," Ingolf said. "I thank you."
So the next day they loaded everything aboard the two ships and sailed for Leif's house. There they stayed for a year. Ingolf still sent his thralls out to look for the pillars. He was careful always to have hay, so his cattle prospered. That spring he planted wheat, but it did not grow well.
"This is sickly stuff," Ingolf said. "It takes too much time and work. It is better to save the land for hay. Perhaps we can sometime go back to Norway for flour."
At last one day the thralls came home and said:
"We have found the pillars."
Ingolf jumped to his feet. He cried out:
"You have kept me waiting three years, Thor. But as soon as my house and temple are built, I will sacrifice to you three horses as a thank-offering."
"It is a long way off, master," thethralls said, "and we have found much better places in our walks about the island."
"Thor knows best," Ingolf answered. "I will settle where he leads me."
So that summer they loaded everything into the ships again and sailed west along the coast until they came to the place where the pillars were. The land there was low and green. On both sides were low hills. A little lake glistened back from shore. In the valley were hot springs, with steam rising from them.
"It looks like smoke," the men said. "It is very strange to see hot water and smoke come out of the ground."
In front of this green land was a good harbor with islands in it. Far over the sea toward the north shone a great ice-mountain.
"I like the place," Ingolf said. "I will make this land mine."
So he built fires at the mouth of the river near there, and stood by them and called out loudly:
"I have put my fire at the mouth of these rivers. All the land that they drainis mine, and no man shall claim it but me. I will call this place Reykjavik."[13]
Then Ingolf built his feast hall. He himself carved the beams and the door-posts. Gaily painted dragons leaned out from the doors and stood up from the gables. Men and animals fought on the door-posts. For the doors he made at the forge great iron hinges. Their ends curved and spread all over the door. Near his feast hall he built a storehouse and a kitchen and a smithy and a stable and a bower for the women.
"We do not need a sleeping-house for guests," he said. "Who would be our guests?"
He roofed all his buildings with turf. It made them look like green mounds with gay carved and painted walls under them. He built also a temple, and on that was beautiful carving. In this he set up those statues that had been in his old temple. He put up, too, those pillars of his high seat that had been drifting about so long. Under them he laid the soil of Norway that he had brought in the little bronze chest.
"I have kept my vow, O Thor!" he cried.
Then he sacrificed three horses that he had promised to Thor. After that was over, he said:
"Here is a good field for sport. Let us have some of the old games that we used to play at home. Who will wrestle with me?"
So they wrestled there and ran races and swam in the water. The women sat and looked on.
"Oh, this is good to see!" Helga cried. "We are as gay as we used to be in old Norway."
But it was not many weeks before Ingolf said:
"I wish that I might sometime see sails in that harbor. I wish that I might think, 'Around this point of land is another farm, and across the bay is another. I can go there when I am very lonely.' I wish that I might sometime be invited to a feast. I wish that I might sometimes hear the good, clanging music of weapons at play. It is a good land, but we have lived alone for four years.I am hungry for new faces and for tidings of Norway."