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Updated: May 29, 2025
"That will I," answered Ketill. "I want no braver leader. But the gods curse me if we roast not a few score men this time, Estein." For two days there was a turmoil of preparation round Hakonstad, and on the third Estein's two warships sailed down the fiord.
As another winter passed, he gradually seemed to come to himself. He was sadder and more reserved than of yore, but the king saw with joy that the gloom was lifting. One day in the season when spring and winter overlap, and the snow melts by day and hardens again over-night, Earl Sigvald returned to Hakonstad from his seat by a northern fiord. King Hakon greeted him cheerfully.
For a moment they were too surprised to speak, and the old man went on with kindling enthusiasm, "Ay, Osla, I followed thee up from the ship, and awaited under the shadow of Hakonstad itself the issue ordained by the gods. King Estein, when thou wert with me I knew not who were the wizard and the witch of the Orkneys. My dreams revealed them not.
On the slope above Hernersfiord stood the royal hall of Hakonstad, the seat of the kings of Sogn; and all about the house, and right down to the water's edge, there was a great bustle and movement of men. From the upland valley at the fiord head, warriors trooped down to the ships that lay by the long stone pier.
Down below, near the foot of the path that led from the pier up to the hall of Hakonstad, a cluster of chiefs stood talking. In the midst of them, Hakon, King of Sogn, one of the independent kinglings who reigned in the then chaotic Norway, watched the departure of his son.
Yet it seems that he spoke indeed as one who had taken counsel with the gods; and if his words acted, as you say, like medicine on Estein, his name matters little. Yet it is passing strange." When they reached Hakonstad, Helgi found that many chiefs had already arrived to take part in the funeral rites and, more particularly, in the feast with which they always ended.
"Thy father and I fell out," replied Atli, "the wherefore I must still keep behind the shrouding-curtain, but for my present purpose it matters little. I could not visit Hakonstad; I could not even stay in the land of my birth. Olaf fell." His voice trembled a little, and he paused. Estein said nothing, but waited for him to go on. Then in a brisker tone he continued,
The ashes they reverently gathered up and placed within a copper bowl, a lid they made of twelve shield bosses, the gifts were gathered and placed all round, and then the spademen heaped the mound above Hakon, King of Sogn. With a quicker stroke and tongues unloosed the fleet returned to Hakonstad. "A noble funeral, Ketill," said one chief to the black-bearded Viking.
"Dear was Estein to his father, and dear the old king to his son. Deep and burning, I fear, will his sorrow be," said the earl. "Fain would I comfort him," replied Helgi. "But I know well Estein's humours, and now he is best alone for a time." They walked slowly up to Hakonstad, the old earl leaning upon his son's arm, and as they went Helgi told him the tale of the Jemtland journey.
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