Said the cowled man: “Quick come thy questions, good fellow! but hast thou skill to understand if I shall tell thee hereof?”
“Yea, certes,” said the lad.
“Well,” said the cowl-bearer, “Thief is my name, with Wolf was I last night, and in Grief-ham was I reared.”
Then ran the lad back to the king, and told him the answer of the new-comer.
“Well told, lad,” said the king; “but for that land of Grief-ham, I know it well: it may well be that the man is of no light heart, and yet a wise man shall he be, and of great worth I account him.”
Said the queen: “A marvellous fashion of thine, that thou must needs talk so freely with every carle that cometh hither! Yea, what is the worth of him, then?”
“That wottest thou no clearer than I,” said the king; “but I see that he thinketh more than he talketh, and is peering all about him.”
Therewith the king sent a man after him, and so the cowl-bearer went up before the king, going somewhat bent, and greeted him in a low voice. Then said the king: “What art thou called, thou big man?”
And the cowl-bearer answered and sang:
“Peace-thief they called me
On the prow with the Vikings;
But War-thief whenas
I set widows a-weeping;
Spear-thief when I
Sent forth the barbed shafts;
Battle-thief when I
Burst forth on the king;
Hel-thief when I
Tossed up the small babies:
Isle-thief when I
In the outer isles harried;
Slaws-thief when I
Sat aloft over men:
Yet since have I drifted
With salt-boiling carls,
Needy of help
'Ere hither I came.”