United States or Chad ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This was no easy task, for sorcerers have arts of their own, but Erik proved equal to it, cut his way through all the difficulties in his path and carried Gunhild away to his ships, where he made her his wife. In her he had wed a dragon of mischief, as his people were to learn.
Scarcely had they got over the excitement of this first invasion when the widow Gunhild and her niece arrived to set the household ablaze with her alarming news. The moment that Haldor heard it he dispatched Alric in search of Erling, who, as we have seen, immediately returned home. Shortly afterwards he and Haldor entered the hall. "Ho! my men," cried the latter, "to arms, to arms!
Björn the Yeoman, his wife's father, had died, and Queen Gunhild had given his estate to Berg-Anund, one of her favorites. Storming with rage, he reached Norway and hotly pleaded his claim to the estate before the assembly or thing at Gula, Erik and Gunhild being present.
"Truly if this be good news," said Erling, with a laugh, "I hope I may never hear bad news. But where got ye such news, Alric?" "From the widow Gunhild, to be sure, who is true to us as steel, and comes all the way from Drontheim, out of love to thee, Erling, to tell it. But, I say, don't you think this good news?
For eighteen years past I have sat in cafes, calling for the waiter if a fork was not clean: I never call for Gunhild in the matter of forks clean or not! There's Grindhusen, now, I say to myself; did you mark when he lit his pipe, how he used the match to the very last of it, and never burned his horny fingers?
The young woman who filled Hake's tankard at the King's bidding was no other than Gunhild, the unfortunate widow of Swart of the Springs.
When Gunhild was a little girl her mother had often shown it to her. The casket was enamelled in white, with a garland of hand-painted flowers. On the inside of the lid was a picture of a shepherd piping to a flock of white lambs. Gunhild now opened the box to take a last peep at the shepherd.
The sons of Eric had only abated under constant discouragement, had not finally left off from what seemed their one great feasibility in life. Gunhild, their mother, was still with them: a most contriving, fierce-minded, irreconcilable woman, diligent and urgent on them, in season and out of season; and as for King Blue-tooth, he was at all times ready to help, with his good-will at least.
He roamed about the strand, looking for sails at sea and seeming to care little for his wife and children. Men said that Gunhild had bewitched him, but more likely it was his own unquiet spirit. At any rate the time came when he could bear a quiet life no longer and he took ship and sailed away to the south. Misfortune now went with him.
When the fishermen are down on the beach, painting their boats or darning nets, comes Gunhild with her vacant eyes, but with a mind as keen as any to a bargain. "And what is the price of mackerel today?" she asks. "The same as yesterday." "Then you can keep it, for all I care." And Gunhild goes back home.
Word Of The Day