MOTTO

“You can glad your child, or grieve it,
You can help it, or deceive it,
When all is done,
Beneath God’s sun,
You can only love, and leave it.”

CONTENTS

CHAPTERPAGE
Introduction[1]
I.The House of Ragnor[7]
II.Adam Vedder’s Trouble[30]
III.Aries the Ram[47]
IV.Sunna and Her Grandfather[72]
V.Sunna and Thora[98]
VI.The Old, Old Trouble[129]
VII.The Call of War[164]
VIII.Thora’s Problem[193]
IX.The Bread of Bitterness[230]
X.The One Remains, the Many Change and Pass[271]
XI.Sequences[304]

1

INTRODUCTION

Yesterday morning this thing happened to me: I was reading the New York Times and my eyes suddenly fell upon one word, and that word rang a little bell in my memory, “Kirkwall!” The next moment I had closed my eyes in order to see backward more clearly, and slowly, but surely, the old, old town––standing boldly upon the very beach of the stormy North Sea––became clear in my mental vision. There was a whole fleet of fishing boats, and a few smart smuggling craft rocking gently in its wonderful harbour––a harbour so deep and safe, and so capacious that it appeared capable of sheltering the navies of the world.