CHAPTER VII. Frithiof at the Orkneys.
Now Earl Angantyr was at Effia whenas Frithiof and his folk came a-land there. But his way it was, when he was sitting at the drink, that one of his men should sit at the watch-window, looking weatherward from the drinking hall, and keep watch there. From a great horn drank he ever: and still as one was emptied another was filled for him. And he who held the watch when Frithiof came a-land was called Hallward; and now he saw where Frithiof and his men went, and sang a stave:
“Men see I a-baling
Amid the storm's might;
Six bale on Ellidi
Seven are a-rowing;
Like is he in the stem,
Straining hard at the oars,
To Frithiof the bold,
The brisk in the battle.”
So when he had drunk out the horn, he cast it in through the window, and spake to the woman who gave him drink:
“Take up from the floor,
O fair-going woman,
The horn cast adown
Drunk out to the end!
I behold men at sea
Who, storm-beaten, shall need
Help at our hands
Ere the haven they make.”
Now the Earl heard what Hallward sang; so he asked for tidings, and Hallward said: “Men are come a-land here, much forewearied, yet brave lads belike: but one of them is so hardy that he beareth the others. ashore.”
Then said the Earl, “Go ye, and meet them, and welcome them in seemly wise; if this be Frithiof, the son of Hersir Thorstein, my friend, he is a man famed far and wide for all prowess.”
Then there took up the word a man named Atli, a great viking, and he spake: “Now shall that be proven which is told of, that Frithiof hath sworn never to be first in the craving of peace.”
There were ten men in company with him, all evil and outrageous, who often wrought berserksgang.