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Updated: June 5, 2025
At length he yielded; though he seems to have been induced to yield, not by the value of the offered gift, but by compassion for the urgency of the distress which the offer of it indicated, for he put the ring back into Ulf's hand, saying that he would not take any thing from him, but he would try to save him.
Ulf follows them up by sea with a superior force, defeats Helgi off Caithness, and he jumps overboard with Helga and swims to shore, where a poor farmer, Thorfinn, as Helgi had always been kind in his "vikings" to such as he was, has the wedding at his house, and shelters the pair there till on Ulf's death two years after they can return to Orkney with Bard or Barth, their infant son.
The house-carles busied themselves in burnishing their mail and sharpening their weapons, while Ada and Hilda assisted Dame Astrid, Ulf's wife, to spread the board for the evening meal. Everything in the hall was suggestive of rude wealth and barbarous warlike times. The hall itself was unusually large capable of feasting at least two hundred men.
"Not quite, as yet. But almost. A little more, perhaps another voyage " Ulf's face flushed scarlet, and into his eyes leaped a joyous light. Yet he said only, "The son of a jarl needs a larger measure, else will men say, 'good as a dagger, but short for a sword." And the grim war-captains around, who knew the difference, nodded assent and said the word was wise.
Then, as usual with King Canute, his passion cooled and he deeply lamented his crime, showing signs of bitter remorse. In way of expiation he paid to his sister Estrid, Ulf's widow, a large sum as blood-fine, and gave her two villages which she left at her death to the church in which her husband had been slain. He also brought up Ulf's eldest son as one of his own children.
He was certainly no earl of the present Sutherland line; neither was Walter. In the time of Sigurd Hlodverson, Ulf the Bad, of Sanday in Orkney, murdered Harald of North Ronaldsay, and seized his lands in the absence of Harald's son Helgi, a gentle Viking, on a cruise. On his return, Helgi, to revenge his father's death, slew Bard, Ulf's next of kin, in fight.
But on they fought, slipping and stumbling, hewing and thrusting, up and up over ruined masonry, over forms that groaned beneath cruel feet on and ever on until within the narrow breach Beltane's long sword darted and thrust and Ulf's axe whirled and fell, while hard by Walkyn's hoarse shout went up in roaring triumph.
And that reminds me of one of Ulf's thralls named Kettle Flatnose, who could assist Harald nobly in the work of beheading himself, for last night, when he and I fought side by side against the Danes, he used a hook of his own making, with such effect, that I was fain to pause and laugh, while myself in the very act of splitting an iron headpiece.
Meanwhile the hermit was conveyed to Ulf's own bed, and his wound, which proved to be less serious than had been feared, was carefully dressed by Hilda, to whom Erling, in the most attentive and disinterested manner, acted the part of assistant-surgeon.
"Lord," said he softly, albeit panting a little, "these men were fools! We do but wait our comrades' signals now." And he fell to cleansing his dagger-blade carefully with a handful of bracken. "Ha list ye!" whispered Cnut, "there sounds Ulf's warning, methinks!" And from the gloom on their left a frog croaked hoarsely.
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