"Margarid," said Joel to his wife, "I bring a guest to you."
"He is welcome," answered the woman without stopping to spin. "The gods send us a guest, our hearth is his own. The eve of my daughter's birth is propitious."
"May your children when they travel, be received as I am by you," answered the stranger respectfully.
"But you do not yet know what kind of a guest the gods have sent us, Margarid," rejoined Joel; "such a guest as one would request of Ogmi for the long autumn and winter nights; a guest who in the course of his travels has seen so many curious things and wonderful that a hundred evenings would not be too many to listen to his marvelous stories."
Hardly had Joel pronounced these words when, from Mamm' Margarid and the young mothers down to the little boys and girls, all looked at the stranger with the greed of curiosity, expectant of the marvelous stories he was to tell.
"Are we to have supper soon, Margarid?" asked Joel. "Our guest is probably as hungry as myself; I am hungry as a wolf."
"The folk have just gone out to fill the racks of the cattle," answered Margarid; "they will be back shortly. If our guest is willing we shall be pleased of his company at supper."
"I thank the wife of Joel, and shall wait," said the unknown.
"And while waiting," remarked Joel, "you can tell us a story—"
But the traveler interrupted his host and said smiling: