‘She was very much wasted then, on such soft-handed starvelings. Why don’t she marry some hero?’
‘Because there are none here to marry,’ said Pelagia; ‘except some who are fast netted, I fancy, already.’
‘But what do they talk about, and tell people to do, these philosophers, Pelagia?’
‘Oh, they don’t tell any one to do anything—at least, if they do, nobody ever does it, as far as I can see; but they talk about suns and stars, and right and wrong, and ghosts and spirits, and that sort of thing; and about not enjoying oneself too much. Not that I ever saw that they were any happier than any one else.’
‘She must have been an Alruna-maiden,’ said Wulf, half to himself.
‘She is a very conceited creature, and I hate her,’ said Pelagia.
‘I believe you,’ said Wulf.
‘What is an Alruna-maiden?’ asked one of the girls.
‘Something as like you as a salmon is like a horse-leech. Heroes, will you hear a saga?’
‘If it is a cool one,’ said Agilmund; ‘about ice, and pine-trees, and snowstorms, I shall be roasted brown in three days more.’