"Forgive her, Adalo! She is but a child."
"No, grandmother, I am a child no longer; I shall see my eighteenth winter when the next snow falls. The child tried to defend herself against superior strength. She was too weak; but now something within me struggles against your arrogance--I know not what it is; it glows here in my breast, and believe me, this thing within is stronger than my hands once were: you cannot conquer."
"I do not wish to conquer; I seek to protect you and your grandmother."
"The head of our clan will protect us--Suomar, her son, my uncle and guardian."
"Suomar thought that you would be safer on Odin's Mountain."
"Because my good uncle did not suspect that you were only trying to win fresh renown by new couplets. Something like this:
'Bitterly bites Bissula! But back
Repentant she ran, in fear of the Romans;
To Adalo, the Adeling!'
You hear--I too can make verses."