Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 12, 2025
"Fain would I try to please my host," he said, looking a little wistfully at my father; "but a man swept far from home against his will is no singer." Then Eadmund pitied him, as did we all, and rose up. "Feasting is over, thanes," he said. "Let us sit awhile in the other chamber and hear Lodbrok's story."
"Loose him not, loose him not, I pray you!" "Tie their hands behind them and let us be gone," was the answer, and they did so, loosing my feet, and setting us on my horse and Lodbrok's. And some of the men stayed behind with my serfs to make a litter on which to carry my friend's body, and follow us to Caistor.
When I came round the spur of wood that had first parted us I was frightened, for Lodbrok's horse ran there loose, snorting as if in terror of somewhat that I could not see, and I caught him and rode on.
I had seen Ingvar no more, busying myself about fitting the ship with awnings and the like for these passengers of ours; and what Thormod did about the men he sought I know not, nor did I care to know. There is a dead tree which marks the place where I had been cast ashore in Lodbrok's boat, and which is the last point of land on which one looks as the ship passes to the open sea from the haven.
"Well," he cried, "are you all dumb, or fools, or wise men; or a little of all three?" But my men answered nothing, even as I had bidden them, and I thought that my time was not yet come to speak. "The fog has got into their throats," said a Dane; for with a great lifting of my heart I knew their tongue, and it was Lodbrok's and not Norse. "Struck speechless with fear more like," said another.
"If she be Norse," said Halfden, and his eyes shone, "we will fight her, and that will be a fight worth telling of by the crew that is left when we have done!" But she turned out to be Danish, and a boat came from her to us. She was on the same errand as ourselves, and, moreover, belonged to one Rorik, who was a friend of Lodbrok's, so that again I must go through all the story of his perils.
And I thought of Halfden, and what he should think when he heard the tale that was likely to be told him, and even as I thought this there was a rushing of light wings, and Lodbrok's gray falcon which I had cast from my wrist as I fell on Beorn came back to me, and perched on my saddle, for my hands were bound behind me. She had become unhooded in some way.
The jarls bid me say that Wulfric of Reedham, Lodbrok's preserver, is a welcome guest in their hall, and they would see him there at once." "Nevertheless," I answered, "Raud the forester was the first to shelter me, and I do not forget." Whereat Raud was pleased, and together we went to the great house, and entered, unchallenged.
In those days of hunting, Ingvar, seeing me ride with the carven spear that was partly his gift, and with Lodbrok's hawk on my wrist, would speak more often with me, though now and again some chance word of mine spoken in the way of my own folk would seem to turn him gloomy and sullen, so that he would spur his horse and leave me.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking