United States or Honduras ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


They went into the cabin and closed the door after them, and Egil and I looked at one another. Egil grinned, but I could not. Outside the door the kitten mewed restlessly in the cold wind to be taken in. "So," he said, "cheer up. This is not your fault; you almost won through. Had the queen come forth as an abbess, I think that I had left you for very shame.

"Surely I thought you would take it back," I cried. "I feared so, for it was my father's sword." "Aha! I knew there was somewhat strange about that blade," he said. "Tell me what story it has." I told him in a few words about the winning of the sword from the grave mound by Thorgeir, my grandfather, and asked Egil how he came by it.

With Grim the Hunter he adventured far up on the fells and ate cheese and bannocks in the tents of the wandering Skridfinns, or stalked the cailzie-cock with his arrows in the great pine forest, which in his own mind he called Mirkwood and feared exceedingly. Or he would go fishing with Egil the Fisherman, spearing salmon in the tails of the river pools.

It was the first day that I had not worn mail since we left London; but Foe's Bane was loose in the scabbard, and ready in case of need. "Ho, skipper!" Egil cried, "whom have you on board?" "Yon priest and some more of his sort," Bertric said. "We have lit on a crow's nest," a man said, laughing. "Where are they, then?" "In the fore peak, and aft here, deadly sick," said Bertric.

"Egil will now come into his inheritance, and become one of the richest men in the Settlement." The trouble was that, in the first flash, Alwin had seen it all too plainly. He had seen that now Egil would become just such a man as Leif was wishing to bargain with. The thought burnt him like a hot iron, and he opened his lips to pour out his frenzy; but he could not find the words.

Alwin was brought to the notice of his new master in a most unexpected fashion. For one reason or another, the camp had been deserted early. At day-break, Egil slung his bow across his back, provided himself with a store of arrows and a bag of food, and set out for the mountains, to hunt, he told Tyrker, sullenly, as he passed.

Egil thus won his life by his song, which became known as the "Ransom of the Head." Another of his songs, called "The Loss of the Son," is held to be the most beautiful in all the literature of Iceland. He afterwards lived long and had many more adventures, and in the end died in his bed in Iceland when he was over ninety years of age.

He struck Egil a rousing blow upon the sullen hump of his shoulders. Unmoved, the Black One continued to stare out into the darkness, his chin upon his fists. "Ugh! Yes. Very likely," he grunted.

The two nuns wept, but the thane's daughter smiled a little, and said, fondling the cat meanwhile on her lap: "In truth, I think that the queen will be happier in making Egil and his Danes obey her in little services than she has been in having to be guided by yourself and the abbot." "It has been hard for her," I answered; "but she owes you much, as I think."

Now it was not long after Streone's death that I had a message from Emma the queen to bid me to her wedding with Cnut, that should be completed with all magnificence. And I went with Thorkel the jarl and Egil, and I could not complain of the welcome I had both from the queen and from Cnut.