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While the men he chose for the crew were the sturdiest, toughest, craftiest set of rascals that ever sailed from a vik. Every one of them was fit to command a longship if the captain was laid low. And every man of them, because of it, knew how to obey on the instant, or if need be, to win a battle without orders. And in a safe hiding-place was a large bundle. It contained a present for the King.
Into one of these he ushered them, having previously pointed out to them that the building occupied a prominent position not far from the great palace of the Queen. "So if you out goes git losted know how to finds you'self agin!" "Das so," said Ebony. "You's a clibber man." "Now you stop," continued the Interpreter, paying no attention to the remark, "for git some some vik vik vikles eh?"
Flosi went to Norway with Steinn the captain and sold his lands in Vik to Geirmund Hvikatimbr, who lived there thenceforward. The ship which Steinn's sailors had built was rather a tub. She was called Trekyllir Tree-sack. Flosi went on his journey in her, but was driven back to Oxarfjord; out of this arose the saga of Bodmod the Champion and Grimolf.
When they had thus dealt with their own condition, Thorsteinn appointed certain impartial men to divide his property in two parts. Thorsteinn's kinsmen took over the half which was to go to the children, and brought them up with their father's relations. They became in time men of the utmost valour, and a large posterity in the Vik is sprung from them.
Ulf went out of the long hall so delighted that he hardly knew whether his feet did not have wings; and he went straight to the shore of the vik, climbed up into one of the longships, made his way to the lofty prow and sat down to think it over.
They had already loaded their ships, and Svan told them to get on board. They therefore retired towards the ships, the men of Vik after them. Svan on reaching the sea struck at Steinn their captain, wounding him badly, and then sprang into his own ship. Thorgrim gave Flosi a severe wound and escaped.
Neither bow nor salute did the young man make until he was at the very portal; then he saw before him a slight, gray man, rather plain of dress, who looked rather than asked his business. "Is this the hall of Knut the Great?" "Yea." "I have come to have speech with him." "And thou?" The keen eyes supplied the rest of the question. "Ulf the Silent, of Sigurd's Vik," was the brief reply.
There was no other castle within long marches through forest and bogland hard to pass over; and, for all of Ulf's peacefulness, if Thorfin, or some of his mates, wanted excitement, and thought it would be a good day to ride out and harry the land or besiege the home of a neighbour, someone would remember the old, old days around Sigurd's Vik, and suggest that to-morrow would be a better day than this to visit Ulf; the to-morrow that never came.
On the coast of Jemptland and Helsingialand he encountered many Swedish warships, cleared them, and slew many men, and took all the wealth of them. It was his habit to lie hidden behind some rocky promontory, or at the mouth of some vik, or creek, and thence dart out upon his unsuspecting prey; and he would thus creep along the coast from vik to vik, harrying and plundering wheresoever he went.
"Ulf, of Sigurd's Vik, is not unknown to me by hearsay, and right glad am I to meet him, and to talk of the ways of ruling men. Yet if what I hear be true, he need not cross vik-mouth to find just ruling." And he had seats brought for them, and food and drink, as was the custom, sending, too, for his sister to receive Edith Fairhair as her guest.
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