He slept hardly at all at night, therefore they could not surprise him in his sleep.
Once, when he spent the night in the bam of a peasant, who had previously renounced the Gods, with all his household, the people from the court barricaded the straw-filled bam, and set fire to it. But Halfred burst through the roof, dashed through the flames and arrows, which could not pierce his body, and slew them all with his hammer.
And this maniac wandering endured many years.
And sea storms, and burning suns, and autumn frosts, and winter ice, beat upon Halfred's half-naked body.
And his hair and beard stood out like a mane around him.
But no longer dark, as when of yore he trod, as a wooer. King Harstein's courts--but snow white. In a single night--the night when Thora died--his hair had become white.
[CHAPTER XVII.]
And after many years he came sailing in his rotten boat over the seas which play around the island of Caledonia. He landed, seized his hammer, and strode upwards to a steep rocky hill, on which sheep and goats were grazing.
It was early morning, in the time when roses begin to bloom.
Mist floated over the sea, and upon the cliffs.