They were thrown very much together, and found nothing amiss with that. Gunnar talked to her of his travels and told her stories as they sat by the fire. He had a happy way with him which made all people like him and give him their confidence. He neither took liberties nor allowed them; but if you were simple and gave yourself no airs he was very gentle and good-humoured. Sigrid had no suspicions of him, nor need for any. He would be incapable of doing her any harm. It was because he was afraid of making her unhappy that he left off teasing her about Frey. At first he had been rather given to it, but he saw that she was troubled by it, and did not know what to say. Then he stopped his gibes and mockery.
FREY MAKES READY TO GO HIS ROUNDS
CHAPTER XIII FREY MAKES READY TO GO HIS ROUNDS
By slow degrees the winter wore away; the clouds broke up, and the thick snow-fleece was pitted all over as if it had been a blanket which moths had fretted. The days drew out longer; men looked up, feeling the sun; the thatches began to drip, and then to run, and to dig for themselves deep channels in the snow. Then began roof-slides by broad blocks at a time, and a man might be buried in slush before he knew it.
Sigrid said that they must make ready Frey's wagon for the road, and told Gunnar where it was stored and asked him to fetch it out. As soon as the buds began to swell on the trees they must be off. Gunnar was glad of some work, and soon had the wagon out of the shedding and haled it into the forecourt.
This wagon was a gaudy affair, being painted all over in red, blue and yellow. The wheels were red and so was the pole. White oxen drew it, which had red trappings and brazen stars on their foreheads. Upright poles at the four corners of the wagon carried a wooden canopy, and held rods also for the curtains which shut Frey off from mortal eyes until such times as he would appear and, having been propitiated with offerings, suffer himself to be carried into the fields. These curtains Sigrid was now busy over. They were green and had dragons, the sun, the moon and stars, and runes also sewn upon them, of red and white colours. The inside of the tent which these curtains made was a fair chamber. In the forepart Frey stood when he was travelling; in the afterpart was his bed where he lay at night. But the parts were not divided off. There was no bed-chamber for him as he had in his winter house. The men who went with the wagon, and tended the oxen, must lie out in the open to sleep, or in the sacking slung beneath where the beast-fodder was carried.