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Updated: June 22, 2025
Only the long black ship, which still pulled slowly away from us, and the fiercely-burning fires on every hilltop spoilt the quiet of the place. "Now it is a question whether the Irish or we take Heidrek," said Hakon. "It is plain that his time has come, one way or the other. On my word, I am almost in the mind to hail him and bid him yield to us to save himself from these axes."
Now for a long while I paced the deck, thinking of all that had happened in these few days. Heavy things they were, but the heaviest were those of the summer morning when Heidrek came, so that beside those terrors what else had passed was as nothing. And I passed through them all again, as it were, and hardened myself to bear them.
To have the deed they threatened set in all its shame before them was a new thing to them. "Let the prince go, chief," I said, seeing this look. "He is a guest, and if this is some old feud with my father of which I have not heard, he does not come into it. He is a guest of the house." "Faith," answered Heidrek savagely, "he has made it his own affair. He has been the bane of three of my best men.
Men thought that Heidrek had brought us to help him raid the land. There were Norsemen on board, men from Dublin, who knew the mouth of the river as well as need be, and better than Heidrek, who had been into it but this once before.
See, we have the ship, and it is high summer. Not one of us can be worse off than we have been of late, and we may win to comfort once more." Thereat she looked at the three of us, and rose up and stretched her hands toward us, as in greeting. "I will trust you," she said. "I will think of you as friends and brothers in trouble, and in enmity to Heidrek the evildoer.
"I am Heidrek the Seafarer, and this is Asbiorn, my son. Mayhap you have heard of us before." I had done so. One of the men in our group had fled to us from Banff a year ago, after just such a raid as this. I heard him groan as the name was spoken. Heidrek heard also, and laughed shortly. "It seems that I am known," he said. "Well, make your choice. The other choice is death, of course.
It is unnecessary here to continue the story as the saga does, working out the doom over later generations; over Hervör's son Heidrek, who forfeited his head to Odin in a riddle-contest, and over his children, another Angantyr, Hlod, and a second Hervör. The verse sources for this latter part are very corrupt.
"Well, think what a voyage we might have had if we had chanced to pick up a crew." "It was your own doing that Heidrek did not pick us up," I said. "Maybe that thought will comfort you somewhat." "I was never glad of a fog before," he answered. And there that matter ended, for now we had wandered to a place whence we could see the strait between us and the mainland, which we must cross presently.
So we had to be content to sit still while the dark sail drew away, and our clothes dried on us. "Well," said the Saxon presently, "how you feel, friends, I do not know; but I want to shout and leap with the joy of being free again. Nine months I have been a thrall to Heidrek, watched, and bound betimes, moreover."
Now we can hardly beat back there, for we are too few to work the sail." "It is as well," she answered sadly. "There wait Arnkel and Heidrek." "We think that Arnkel may have made an end of Heidrek's power," I said. At that she shook her head. "Arnkel has had old dealings with Heidrek. He has sailed with him, I know.
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