Indeed the two sons of the brenn were distinguished by the light of the torches, and behind them their horses, panting for breath and white with foam. After tenderly embracing his sons, especially the mariner, who was absent over a year on his sea journeys, Joel entered the house with them, where they were received with joy and not a little surprise by their mother and other relatives.
Albinik the mariner and Mikael the armorer were, like their father and their brother, men of large and robust stature. Over their clothes they carried a caped cloak of heavy woolen fabric streaming with the rain. Upon entering the house, and even before embracing their mother, the new arrivals stepped to the altar and approached their lips to the seven small twigs of mistletoe that stood dipped in the copper bowl on the large stone. They there noticed a lifeless body covered with oak branches, near which Julyan still sat.
"Good evening, Julyan," said Mikael. "Who is dead?"
"It is Armel; I killed him this evening in a sword contest," answered Julyan; "but as we have both pledged brotherhood to each other, I shall join him to-morrow beyond. If you wish it I shall mention you to him."
"Yes, yes. Julyan; I loved Armel and expected to find him alive. In the bag on my horse I have a little harpoon head of iron that I forged for him; I shall place it to-morrow on the pyre of you two—"
"And you must tell Armel," added the mariner smiling, "that he went away too soon; his friends Albinik and Meroë would have told him their last experience at sea."
"It is Armel and myself," replied Julyan with a smile, "who will later have pretty stories to tell you. Your sea trips will be like nothing to the travels that await us in those marvelous worlds that none has seen and all will see."
After Margarid's two sons had answered the tender inquiries of their mother and family, the brenn said to the unknown traveler:
"Friend, these are my two sons."
"May it please heaven that the suddenness of their arrival may not be caused by some evil event," answered the traveler.