Then the great effort and excitement of the battle left him hungry. His hunger pricked him like a knife—impelled him to mount his horse and gallop straight home at full speed to where his young wife was waiting for news of him.
He always ate prodigiously after fighting; to see him eating roast meat and washing it down his great throat with drinks of ale after a battle, made one think of the spectacle of a stormy sea swallowing ships.
Then came the customary banqueting and singing and drinking. Professional singers sang songs in praise of his fighting that day, while he sat enthroned among his warriors, with his sword by his side, and his young wife seated at his right hand. All his enemies were dead.
For half the night the drinking and singing continued. Harald had to sit there and hear himself praised, and drink whenever his own health was drunk to—such was the custom. But when the strong men had begun to show the influence of liquor too much, the king made a sign to his wife to withdraw to her own room. When the warriors drank too much, it was not a time for women to be present.
This is the substance of the first part of the poem. Observe that Harald is never spoken of as having been fatigued by his battle; fighting only makes him hungry. This is a giant and probably a kindly giant in his way; we see that he is fond of his young wife. But he cannot retire from the banquet according to the custom of his people. He must drink with everybody after the great victory. And he drinks so much that he remains like a dead man for three days. Only after that, his great strength is to be tried.
VI
Twice the sun had mounted, twice had sunk,
Ere his ears took sound; he lay for dead;
Mountain on his trunk,
Ocean on his head.
VII
Clamped to couch, his fiery hearing sucked
Whispers that at heart made iron-clang;
Here fool-women clucked,
There men held harangue.
VIII
Burial to fit their lord of war,
They decreed him: hailed the kingling: ha!
Hateful! but this Thor
Failed a weak lamb's baa.
IX
King they hailed a branchlet, shaped to fare,
Weighted so, like quaking shingle-spume,
When his blood's own heir
Ripened in the womb!
Twice the sun had risen and had set, yet Harald had not stirred. His hearing returned; but he could not move, could not speak, could not open his eyes. Upon his breast there seemed to be a weight like the weight of a mountain keeping him down; above his head it seemed to him that there was a whole ocean—in his head there was the sound of it.
But soon other sounds came to his ears, as he lay upon his bed, as if fixed to it with bands of iron. He heard whispers that made a disturbance at his heart. He heard women cluttering like hens; he heard also men making speeches.
What were they making speeches about? About him. He heard them say that he was dead; that he must be grandly buried like a great warrior and king. And he heard them talk of the new king—rather, of the kingling. Why did they appoint so weak a man to be king? How quickly he could stop all that with a word. But although he had been as strong and terrible as the God Thor, he could not now even make a noise like the bleat of a lamb.
Still he listened, he heard more. This king that was to be was only very distantly related to him. Such a man never could have force of will to rule the men of that country. He would have no more power than sea foam on a beach of rocks. But why should a king have been elected at all? Was not his own wife soon to become a mother? His child would be a man fit to rule. While the child was still a child, the chiefs could govern. Why did they elect that other?