“But a dream of no mark this is,” he says, “and will in all likelihood betoken gales, that they shall meet in the air from those quarters whence I deemed the fowl flew.”
The Eastman spake: “I deem it nowise such,” saith he.
Thorstein said, “Make of the dream, then, what seemeth likest to thee, and let me hear.”
Then said the Eastman: “These birds are like to be fetches of men: but thy wife sickens now, and she will give birth to a woman-child fair and lovely; and dearly thou wilt love her; but high-born men shall woo thy daughter, coming from such quarters as the eagles seemed to fly from, and shall love her with overweening love, and shall fight about her, and both lose their lives thereby. And thereafter a third man, from the quarter whence came the falcon, shall woo her, and to that man shall she be wedded. Now, I have unravelled thy dream, and I think things will befall as I have said.”
Thorstein answered: “In evil and unfriendly wise is the dream interpreted, nor do I deem thee fit for the work of unriddling dreams.”
Then Eastman said, “Thou shalt find how it will come to pass.”
But Thorstein estranged himself from the Eastman thenceforward, and he left that summer, and now he is out of the tale.
CHAPTER III. Of the Birth and Fostering of Helga the Fair.
This summer Thorstein got ready to ride to the Thing, and spake to Jofrid his wife before he went from home. “So is it,” he says, “that thou art with child now, but thy child shall be cast forth if thou bear a woman; but nourished if it be a man.”