This ceremony ended, the bridegroom advanced towards Randalin, and presented her the “lin-fee,” or trousseau, in which were included beautiful bracelets, necklaces, and diadems of gold. There were several mantles of different colors, and various head-dresses, gloves, shoes, underwear of silk and linen, and night-dresses with long sleeves, of the finest linen the land could produce. Some were of silk, the material for which had been brought by Ivar from the shores of the Caspian.
Then the gifts called the bridal bench gifts followed. These were called bench gifts because each guest presented a gift to the bride while she was seated on the bridal bench. Guest after guest lay before Randalin the beautiful presents that he or she had brought for her.
A great-aunt, from the island of Fyen, gave her with her bench gift a gold coin of Tiberius, who was Roman emperor 14-37 A.D., which had come into the possession of her ancestors during the life of that emperor.
Another aunt sent her, among her presents, a gold coin of Claudius, 41-54 A.D., that had been in the possession of her kinsmen since that time.
Among the many gifts of Sigrlin, Ivar’s mother, was a gold coin of Titus, 79-81 A.D., which had been got by the ancestors of Hjorvard in the Mediterranean at the time Titus took Jerusalem.
A cousin gave her a gold coin of Decius, 249-251 A.D.; another, a gold coin of Aurelian, 270-275 A.D.
An uncle of Randalin, from southern Svithjod, gave her a gold coin of Probus, 276-282 A.D., which his son had given to him.
There were many exquisite jewels, necklaces made of rods of gold; diadems of gold, with Randalin’s name in runic letters upon them; spiral bracelets of gold; belts of gold and of silver; beautiful hair-pins of gold and silver, with ornamented tops highly finished; necklaces of mosaic beads of great beauty, and gold beads; and bracteates with gold chains of beautiful workmanship.
Gurid, an aunt of Randalin, sent her, by her son, a woman’s headgear, carefully put in a bag of velvet all embroidered with gold.
Sigurd gave her a large quantity of Grecian fabrics, and many jewels of gold. Sigmund likewise gave the rarest glassware that could be procured in Greece, or on the island of Cyprus. Gudbrand, the father of Hjalmar, had brought her many dishes of gold and silver. Sigrid, his wife, sent her beautiful tapestries which she had embroidered herself.