It stood beside a tarn and a snow-field came down into the water—we heard the flakes of ice break off and splash into the lake as we lay at night. Steinfinn offered a gold ring from his finger at the first church we came to below—it was a holy-day. The poor folk of the fells stared at us agape—we had ridden from the town as we stood, in our Sunday clothes. They were much the worse for wear, but, for all that, no such clothes had ever been seen in that dale.

“But a weary bride I was, when Steinfinn brought me home to Hov. And already I bore you under my heart—”

Ingunn stared at her mother as though spellbound. In the faint light of the lantern that stood on the floor between them she saw so strange a smile on her mother’s face. Ingebjörg stroked her daughter’s head and drew her long plaits through her hand.

“—And now you are already a grown maid.”

Her mother rose and gave her the great embroidered bedcover, bidding her shake it out over the balcony.

“Mother!” the girl cried loudly from outside.

Ingebjörg ran out to her.

It was almost daylight and the sky was pale and clear high up, but clouds and mist lay over the land. Straight across the lake in the north-west a great fire was blazing, shedding a ruddy light on the thick air far around. Black smoke poured out, drifted away, and mingled with the fog, thickening and darkening it far over the ridge. Now and again they saw the very flames, when they rose high, but the burning homestead lay hidden behind a tongue of the woods.

The two women stood for a while gazing at it. The mother said not a word, and the girl dared not speak. Then the mistress turned into the loft—a moment later Ingunn saw her running across the yard to her little house.

Two women servants rushed out in their bare shifts and ran down to the courtyard fence. Then came Tora, with her fair hair fluttering loose, her mother leading her two young sons, and all the women of the place. Their cries and talk reached Ingunn.

But when they began to swarm up into the loft, she stole out. With her head bent and her hands crossed under the cloak that she held tightly about her—she would have wished to be quite invisible—she crept up to her own loft and lay down.

A violent fit of weeping came upon her—she could not make out what it was she wept like that for. It was just that she was too full of all that had crowded in upon her that night. She could not bear others to come near her—it made her tears run over. Tired she was too. It was morning now.

When she awoke, the sun was shining in at the door. Ingunn started up and pulled on her shift—she heard there were horses in the yard.

Four or five of their own strayed about grazing, unsaddled. Olav’s dun Elk was among them. And there was a neighing from the paddock. The maids ran between the cook-house and the hall—they were all in festival clothes.

She threw her cloak over her and ran to the eastern bower. The floor was strewed with brier-roses and meadowsweet—it almost took her breath away. She had not seen festivity in her home since she was a little girl. Drinking-bouts in the hall and banquets on high days—but not such as they strewed the rooms with flowers for. Her silken kirtle and the gilt circlet lay on Olav’s chest. Ingunn fetched them and ran back.

She had no mirror, but she did not feel the want of it as she stood ready dressed in her bower. She felt the weight of the gilt garland over her flowing hair, looked down at her figure wrapped in the green and yellow silk. The kirtle fell in long folds from her bosom to her feet, held in slightly by the silver belt at her waist.