Then spake the King: "Be not afraid;
Sit here by me." The guest obeyed,
And, seated at the table, told
Tales of the sea, and Sagas old.

Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang.

And ever, when the tale was o'er,
The King demanded yet one more;
Till Sigurd the Bishop smiling said,
""Tis late, O King, and time for bed."

Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang.

The King retired; the stranger-guest
Followed and entered with the rest;
The lights were out, the pages gone,
But still the garrulous guest spake on.

Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang.

As one who from a volume reads,
He spake of heroes and their deeds,
Of lands and cities he had seen,
And stormy gulfs that tossed between.
Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang.

Then from his lips in music rolled
The Havamal of Odin old,

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
Made by the gods in elder times,
And do not still the great Scalds teach
That silence better is than speech ?"

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,
They found the watch-dog in the yard.

There was no foot-print in the grass,
And none had seen the stranger pass.

Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang.

King Olaf crossed himself and said:
"I know that Odin the Great is dead;
Sure is the triumph of our Faith,
The one-eyed stranger was his wraith."
Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang.

VII.

IRON-BEARD.

OLAF the King, one summer morn,
Blew a blast on his bugle-horn,

Sending his signal through the land of Drontheim.

And to the Hus-Ting held at Mere
Gathered the farmers far and near,

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,
Unharnessed his horses from the plough,
And clattering came on horseback to King Olaf.

He was the churliest of the churls;
Little he cared for king or earls;

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;
His beard, from which he took his name,
Frosty and fierce, like that of Hymer the Giant.

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,
Out of the middle of the crowd,

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,
And loud behind him heard the din

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
Of his huge war-axe, gold-inlaid,

And downward shattered to the pavement flung them.

At the same moment rose without,
From the contending crowd, a shout,
A mingled sound of triumph and of wailing.

And there upon the trampled plain
The farmer Iron-Beard lay slain,

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,
The people with a murmur said,

"O King, baptize us with thy holy water!"

So all the Drontheim land became

A Christian land in name and fame,
In the old gods no more believing and trusting.

And as a blood-atonement, soon
King Olaf wed the fair Gudrun;

And thus in peace ended the Drontheim Hus-Ting!

VIII.

GUDRUN.

Like the drifting snow she sweeps
To the couch where Olaf sleeps;
Suddenly he wakes and stirs,
His eyes meet hers.

"What is that," King Olaf said,
"Gleams so bright above thy head?
Wherefore standest thou so white
In pale moonlight?"

""Tis the bodkin that I wear
When at night I bind my hair;
It woke me falling on the floor;
'Tis nothing more."

"Forests have ears, and fields have
eyes;

Often treachery lurking lies
Underneath the fairest hair!

Gudrun beware!"

Ere the earliest peep of morn
Blew King Olaf's bugle-horn;
And for ever sundered ride
Bridegroom and bride!