As the lad opened the house door the thought struck him: now he was to lie alone in this house the whole summer. He had slept alone there now and then for a few nights, when his father was from home, and never been afraid, but now he felt his flesh creep a little.

The smoke-vent was not closed. Some food was left for him on the bare, clean-swept hearth. But the room had a cheerless look in the pale twilight. Eirik made haste to close the door leading to the black hole of the closet. He would close the outer door too, before sitting down to his food. But on coming to the doorway he could not help staying a moment to listen—how the birds sang tonight!

Out on the meadow a dark shadow stirred. Eirik whistled softly—the dog dashed up, but stopped a little way off, wagging his tail and not daring to come nearer. Eirik coaxed and coaxed—“Come along, King Ring—what have you been doing now?” The rascal was a most mischievous beast; his life had long been threatened daily both by Olav and by the servants, but none had yet had the enterprise to make an end of him.

At last King Ring took courage and slipped through the door, crouching down and rubbing his head against the boy’s calf. Eirik hastened to bolt the door, and as he stooped in the darkness, the dog nearly knocked him down as he whimpered affectionately and licked his face with his hot tongue.

Sitting on the edge of the hearth, he ate cold porridge and sour milk and shared the wind-dried meat with the dog. Now his only thought was that it would be fine to have the living-room to himself this summer.

He hid the copper horse under the pillow in his bed. King Ring jumped up and lay down over his feet.

“—And when the ogress comes in and gropes about in the dark for this Christian man, he whistles for his white bear—”

Eirik drew his legs up closer under him and thought it all over again from the beginning. There is a man—and this man is himself, as it might be—who has wandered all day through wild forests; late in the evening he comes to a house. It is deserted, but he finds food and a bed prepared, and he goes to rest. In the course of the night he hears a great noise, and in comes an ogress—she is so tall that she reaches to the roof-beams and as broad as she is high. And she sniffs and scents the blood of a Christian and gropes and searches, for she wants to take the man and roast him on the fire. But then he whistles for his dog—

Sleep began to creep over Eirik; his thoughts were confused. He took it up again—through wild forests all day long, he and the white bear—and then there came in an ogress—first they came to a great house in the depth of the forest—he saw it all as large as life, the little clearing and the empty house.—Then sleep overcame him and quenched all visions.

1 In Norse mythology the Fimbul (i.e., mighty) winter, lasting for three years, precedes Ragnarok, the death battle of the ancient gods.

2

CALMS and contrary winds delayed the Reindeer’s voyage southward along the shore, and only on the twelfth day after their departure from Hestviken were the men able to stand out to sea. But once in open sea they had a good breeze and by the third morning Olav made a landfall on a high, mountainous coast that he took to be Scotland. He had heard that there was war between the English and the Scottish Kings; therefore he chose to bear off to sea again. They stood off and on for the best part of a day, and then the wind became more northerly. Now the men put on their shirts of mail and steel caps, for the southern sea between England and Flanders was never peaceful and safe for trading voyagers.

Since his life had been spent far up country until he was grown up, there was always something adventurous about the sea and a sea-voyage for Olav Audunsson; and though his body was tired out, his heart felt wonderfully fresh and rested. He had watched through the long, grey summer nights, always with mind and senses calmly alert, directed toward sea and sky—it was as though he were sailing away from the very memories of endless wakeful nights, when he had lain imprisoned at the bottom of a dark bed in the pitch-dark cave of the closet. They sank beneath the horizon at his back like the very coast from which he had steered. The weather had been fair almost all the time—the steady wind whistled in the rigging and bellied out the sail; the long, heaving ocean waves lifted the little hoy. For an instant it seemed to hesitate and think about it before plunging into the hollow—then a foaming at the bows, a little flying spray, a glimpse of grey-green water along the gunwale, the full note of the ocean as it raised its waves and drove one before another—the three big waves that came again and again after a certain interval. Clouds covered the whole vault of heaven, pale grey, drifting unhurriedly across the sky, now and again a pale gleam of sunshine falling on the sloping wet deck. Toward evening the weather often cleared a little; over on the horizon there was a glitter of sunlight on the sea. Then the bank of clouds closed in, reddened by the sunset behind them.

His sleep in the daytime refreshed him through and through, lying in a barrel, with the fur lining of his cloak wrapped warmly about his cheeks. The rushing of the waves, the sighing and creaking of the ship’s timbers, the cries of the crew, rattling and heavy steps on deck—all these sounds reached him as he lay feeling the vessel lifting under him, gliding and sinking.