Frey and His Wife

by Maurice Hewlett

So Sigrid was brought to King Olaf, who questioned her alone. But he found it one thing to question and another thing to get answered. As for her origin she was quite willing to repeat all that she had told Gunnar early in her acquaintance with him. King Olaf knew her country and the city of Prag, from which it seemed she had come, very well. Then he wanted to know about her marriage with Frey, and she became dumb. How long was it before she knew that Frey was nought? No answer. What sort of communication had passed between her and Frey? No answer. Was Frey kind to her? Did he beat her? Was it his eyes which dominated her? No answers.

Lastly he said this: "Have you told Gunnar everything that there is to tell?"

To that she answered, "Yes," and her eyes were unclouded and not afraid of the king's.

"Well!" said Olaf; and that was all there was to say about it.

The king told Gunnar that he was not married at all, to which Gunnar answered, "Ho, am I not?" But he went on to say that he had vowed himself to Christianity on the night of his marriage, and that he and Sigrid were very ready to accomplish the vow. The king agreed to it; so the pair of them went into the water with the Bishop of Drontheim, and were afterwards married again by the laws of Christendom and Holy Church.

Men sat still then for the winter, and in the spring King Olaf gathered his hosts and fitted out his long ships for work in Iceland. Gunnar excused himself, saying that he was busy with his new house and his child; but he spoke more freely to Sigurd.

"I know one thing which you intend doing over there," he said, "and I will have no share in it myself. I owe no grudge to Ogmund Dint, though it was a dirty trick he played me for his own beastly ends. But I got Sigrid out of the adventure and everything I possess, and that's enough for me."

"Plenty," said Sigurd, "and I am with you, and should do the same if I were in your place. But the king won't have slayings done in Norway unavenged. He is very bitter against Ogmund, and I fancy it will go hard with him."

"I don't doubt that," said Gunnar. "King Olaf is a hard nut to crack."

The expedition sailed, and sailed north. The landing was made in Shaw Firth where Ogmund's father, Raven, was a great man. But Ogmund himself was not there. Wigfus, who was in the host, told the king where he would be found, and when matters had been settled in the north the fleet sailed about to the east of Iceland and made a new landing, not far from Thwartwater.