CONTENTS
[FOREWORD]
CHAPTER I
[Where Wolves Thrive Better than Lambs]
CHAPTER II
[The Maid in the Silver Helmet]
CHAPTER III
[A Gallant Outlaw]
CHAPTER IV
[In a Viking Lair]
CHAPTER V
[The Ire of a Shield-Maiden]
CHAPTER VI
[The Song of Smiting Steel]
CHAPTER VII
[The King's Guardsman]
CHAPTER VIII
[Leif the Cross-Bearer]
CHAPTER IX
[Before the Chieftain]
CHAPTER X
[The Royal Blood of Alfred]
CHAPTER XI
[The Passing of the Scar]
CHAPTER XII
[Through Bars of Ice]
CHAPTER XIII
[Eric the Red in His Domain]
CHAPTER XIV
[For the Sake of the Cross]
CHAPTER XV
[A Wolf-Pack in Leash]
CHAPTER XVI
[A Courtier of the King]
CHAPTER XVII
[The Wooing of Helga]
CHAPTER XVIII
[The Witch's Den]
CHAPTER XIX
[Tales of the Unknown West]
CHAPTER XX
[Alwin's Bane]
CHAPTER XXI
[The Heart of a Shield-Maiden]
CHAPTER XXII
[In the Shadow of the Sword]
CHAPTER XXIII
[A Familiar Blade in a Strange Sheath]
CHAPTER XXIV
[For Dear Love's Sake]
CHAPTER XXV
["Where Never Man Stood Before"]
CHAPTER XXVI
[Vinland the Good]
CHAPTER XXVII
[Mightier than the Sword]
CHAPTER XXVIII
["Things that are Fated"]
CHAPTER XXIX
[The Battle to the Strong]
CHAPTER XXX
[From Over the Sea]
[CONCLUSION]
FOREWORD
THE Anglo-Saxon race was in its boyhood in the days when the Vikings lived. Youth's fresh fires burned in men's blood; the unchastened turbulence of youth prompted their crimes, and their good deeds were inspired by the purity and whole-heartedness and divine simplicity of youth. For every heroic vice, the Vikings laid upon the opposite scale an heroic virtue. If they plundered and robbed, as most men did in the times when Might made Right, yet the heaven-sent instinct of hospitality was as the marrow of their bones. No beggar went from their doors without alms; no traveller asked in vain for shelter; no guest but was welcomed with holiday cheer and sped on his way with a gift. As cunningly false as they were to their foes, just so superbly true were they to their friends. The man who took his enemy's last blood-drop with relentless hate, gave his own blood with an equally unsparing hand if in so doing he might aid the cause of some sworn brother. Above all, they were a race of conquerors, whose knee bent only to its proved superior. Not to the man who was king-born merely, did their allegiance go, but to the man who showed himself their leader in courage and their master in skill. And so it was with their choice of a religion, when at last the death-day of Odin dawned. Not to the God who forgives, nor to the God who suffered, did they give their faith; but they made their vows to the God who makes men strong, the God who is the never-dying and all-powerful Lord of those who follow Him.