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Updated: June 22, 2025
Then Ottar raised the standard and pointed it forward, and there rose a thundering cheer from our whole line as we charged and swept the Danes before us, spear and axe and sword cleaving their way unchecked. And surely sword Foe's Bane wiped out the dishonour of biding in a foeman's power that day. Then rode our horsemen among the disordered crowd, and that was the end.
Now it grew darker as we followed him, and Ottar tripped and fell, and I lost him, though I could hear him close behind me as he broke a branch now and then in passing. The king stayed in a clear place that I remembered well. Great trees stood round, and it was pleasant to sit there and look out over the water on a summers noonday. "Where is Ottar?" he said, when I stood by him. "Close behind me.
For we had borne the first shock of the battle after all, and had earned praise. Moreover the whole line cheered us as we fell back into the second line. "Now comes the real fighting," said Olaf to me; "stay by my side, cousin, and you and I will see some sword play together." So I stood on the left hand, and Ottar was on his right with the standard, and Prat of Sudbury was next to me.
A modern nursery rhymester to succeed would have to write of Little Lord Jack and Lady Jill ascending one of the many beautiful eminences belonging to the ancestral estates of their parents, bearing between them, on a silver rod, an exquisitely painted Sevres vase filled with ottar of roses. I take up my fourpenny-halfpenny magazine.
Surely had it not been for the scald's ready wit both Olaf and I had been lying even now in the dark mere. For it would have been death to us all three had Ottar tried to rescue us sword in hand. It is his saying that he was so frozen with fear at first until he knew we had met with mortals only that he stood still and helpless, listening.
Rani was on the right wing, and Biorn the marshal on the left; and Ottar the scald bore Olaf's banner beside the king. There were six of the best warriors of the crew before Olaf as his shield wall, and six of the best English warriors had been named by Prat to act in the same way for me.
I looked every moment to see the rush of Ottar into the midst, sword in hand; and saw that it would go hard with him, for all the men were armed, and some wore mail that rattled as they moved.
"If there is aught in old sayings," answered Ottar, "the sword will draw its holder to face you, unless he won it in fair fight hand to hand." Thereat Olaf laughed, and no more was said. But in years to come there were told strange tales of the longing, as it were, of his own sword 'Hneitir' to be back at its master's side.
Then one Ottar, the son of Ebb, kindled with confidence in the greatness either of his own achievements, or of his courtesy and eloquent address, stubbornly and ardently desired to woo the maiden. And though he strove with all the force of his wit to soften her gaze, no device whatever could move her downcast eyes; and, marvelling at her persistence in her indomitable rigour, he departed.
Now the arrows rattled on the penthouse roofs, and one or two glanced from Olaf's armour and mine, and from the shields which Ottar and I held before him. For we were alone with him at the helm. He was steering his ship himself, as was Rani, and hardly would he suffer us to be beside him to shield him. But we would have it thus in the end.
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