"I had a strange dream last night. I thought that I stood in the grass before my bower.[1] I pulled a thorn from my dress. As I held it in my fingers, it grew into a tall tree. The trunk was thick and red as blood, but the lower limbs were fair and green, and the highest ones were white. I thought that the branches of this great tree spread so far that they covered all Norway and even more."
"A strange dream," said King Halfdan. "Dreams are the messengers of the gods. I wonder what they would tell us," and he stroked his beard in thought.
Some time after that a serving-woman came into the feast hall where King Halfdan was. She carried a little white bundle in her arms.
"My lord," she said, "a little son is just born to you."
"Ha!" cried the king, and he jumped up from the high seat and hastened forward until he stood before the woman.
"Show him to me!" he shouted, and there was joy in his voice.
The serving-woman put down her bundle on the ground and turned back the cloth. There was a little naked baby. The king looked at it carefully.
"It is a goodly youngster," he said, and smiled. "Bring Ivar and Thorstein."[2]
They were captains of the king's soldiers. Soon they came.
"Stand as witnesses," Halfdan said.