"If you do that you do a foolish thing," said the man, "but it is not for me to stop you.
"It's not so foolish as you suppose," Sigurd answered. He paid over his money, and away with the cloak.
"I take you with me to find your master," he said to it, very well satisfied with his morning's work.
He made a good journey in his ship, coasted the land of Sweden and ran up a long way into the land. He arrived there towards the middle of the summer, and made inquiries of the whereabouts of the woodland Frey. Hereabouts, they told him, he was not worshipped, though great tales were told of him which had shaken many, and moved some to go into the forest country to judge for themselves. They gave him certain information where that country was. He was to follow the course of the river up into the land. When it ran finer he would come to a good ford. On the west of that lay the country of the woodland Frey.
Sigurd set off on horseback with a good retinue, and made long journeys. In about ten days or a fortnight the river began to run brokenly; in a day more he should be at the ford. So it proved. The country ran flat in a broad valley, on the west of which, climbing gradually to the mountains, so far as the eye could see there was forest.
They kept a look-out for the ford, and presently a man of theirs, riding in front, topped, looked earnestly, and then held up his hand with a spear in it. They came up with him. "What is it you see?" Sigurd asked him.
"I see the ford," he said, "and I see also men fighting about it. And it seems to me that twenty are attacking a few."
Sigurd was looking as they all were. "What are those white animals I see on this bank?"
"They are oxen," said the look-out man.
"I see also a great wagon they have behind them. And I believe that Frey is in the wagon. What I marvel at is that he should be there at all and not among the fighters."