Then spake the King: "Be not afraid; Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. And ever, when the tale was o'er, Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. The King retired; the stranger-guest Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. As one who from a volume reads, Then from his lips in music rolled With sounds mysterious as the roar Of billows on a distant shore. Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. "Do we not learn from runes and rhymes Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. Smiling at this, the King replied, 66 Thy lore is by thy tongue belied; For never was I so enthralled Either by Saga-man or Scald.” Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. The Bishop said, "Late hours we keep! Night wanes, O King! 'tis time for sleep!" Then slept the King, and when he woke The guest was gone, the morning broke. Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. They found the doors securely barred, There was no foot-print in the grass, Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. King Olaf crossed himself and said: VII. IRON-BEARD. OLAF the King, one summer morn, Sending his signal through the land of Drontheim. And to the Hus-Ting held at Mere With their war weapons ready to confront him. Ploughing under the morning star, Old Iron-Beard in Yriar Heard the summons, chuckling with a low laugh. He wiped the sweat-drops from his brow, He was the churliest of the churls; Bitter as home-brewed ale were his foaming passions. Hodden-gray was the garb he wore, And by the Hammer of Thor he swore; He hated the narrow town, and all its fashions. But he loved the freedom of his farm, His ale at night, by the fireside warm, Gudrun his daughter, with her flaxen tresses. He loved his horses and his herds, The smell of the earth, and the song of birds, His well-filled barns, his brook with its watercresses. Huge and cumbersome was his frame; So at the Hus-Ting he appeared, The farmer of Yriar, Iron-Beard, On horseback, with an attitude defiant. And to King Olaf he cried aloud, That tossed about him like a stormy ocean: "Such sacrifices shalt thou bring, To Odin and to Thor, O King, As other kings have done in their devotion!" King Olaf answered: "I command This land to be a Christian land; Here is my Bishop who the folk baptizes! "But if you ask me to restore Your sacrifices, stained with gore, Then will I offer human sacrifices! "Not slaves and peasants shall they be, But men of note and high degree, Such men as Orm of Lyra and Kar of Gryting!" Then to the Temple strode he in, Of his men-at-arms and the peasants fiercely fighting. There in their Temple, carved in wood, The image of great Odin stood, And other gods, with Thor supreme among them. King Olaf smote them with the blade And downward shattered to the pavement flung them. At the same moment rose without, And there upon the trampled plain Midway between the assailed and the assailing. King Olaf from the doorway spoke: "Choose ye between two things, my folk To be baptized or given up to slaughter!" And seeing their leader stark and dead, "O King, baptize us with thy holy water!" So all the Drontheim land became A Christian land in name and fame, And as a blood-atonement, soon And thus in peace ended the Drontheim Hus-Ting! VIII. GUDRUN. Like the drifting snow she sweeps "What is that," King Olaf said, ""Tis the bodkin that I wear "Forests have ears, and fields have Often treachery lurking lies Gudrun beware!" Ere the earliest peep of morn |