Then Ingvar turned and lighted the altar fire, and the smoke rose straight up and hung in the heavy morning air in a cloud over the Ve; and that seemed to be of good omen, for the men shouted joyfully once, and were again silent.
From behind the sanctuary two armed men led the horse for the sacrifice that should be feasted on thereafter; and it was a splendid colt, black and faultless, so that to me it seemed a grievous thing that its life should thus be spilt for naught. Yet I was the only one there who deemed it wasted.
Then Ingvar chanted words to which I would not listen, lest my heart should seem to echo them, so taking part in the heathen prayer. Over the horse he signed Thor's hammer, and slew it with Thor's weapon, and the two men flayed and divided it skilfully, laying certain portions before the jarl, the godar.
He sprinkled the blood upon doorway and statue, and then again chanting, laid those portions upon the altar fire, and the black smoke rose up from them, while all the host watched for what omens might follow.
The smoke rose, wavered, and went up, and then some breath of wind took it and drifted it gently into the open temple, winding it round the head of Thor's image and filling all the little building. And at that the men shouted again.
Then Ingvar turned slowly towards the shrine, and drawing his sword, lifted up the broad shining blade as if in salute, crying as he turned the point north and east and south and west:
"Skoal, ye mighty Ones!"
And at once, as one man all the host, save myself only, lifted their weapons in salute, crying in a voice that rolled back from the trees like an answering war shout:
"Skoal to the mighty Ones!"
But as for me, I stirred not, save that as by nature, and because I fixed my thoughts on the One Sacrifice of our own faith, I signed myself with the sign of the cross, only knowing this, that Thor and Odin I would not worship.