“What men call love springs from the mind, for the mind is the seat and source of all our thoughts; the heart does not think, and cannot love; it palpitates quicker, it is true, with love, but it is only the reflection of the mind. There is a beginning in love, as in everything else that the gods have created—like the flower, it must be born first, grow, bud, and bloom. The bud is the beginning of love, and when love is young it is fickle.
“Trust not love too soon when it is young, for fickle is the mind of man towards woman, and if one searches well, he will find that many a good maiden is fickle to man, for their hearts were shaped like a whirling wheel, and fickleness was laid in their breasts.”
The day of parting came at last. The life shaped by the Nornir had to continue; the future was hidden from sight, but what stories of the budding of love could be told, for many a blushing maiden had lost her heart with a brave warrior, and many a Viking had lost his also.
CHAPTER XI
THE DAUGHTERS OF RAN
It was late in the summer when Ivar and Hjalmar, who had decided to cross the North Sea on the Elidi, and their Viking fleet left the coast of Britain for the Baltic. All on board of the ships wondered if Ægir and Ran, the god and goddess of the sea and their daughters, would show themselves in ugly mood on their way home. The people believed that those who were drowned at sea went to Ran, those who died by weapons went to Valhalla, and those who died of natural death in their beds or chairs went to Hel. The sea-faring people worshipped Ægir, for he governed the sea and wind. Ran, his wife, received well all shipwrecked people in her hall at the bottom of the sea, and had a net with which she caught men who came out to sea; drowned men were sure to be welcomed by her. The Wind and the Fire are the brothers of Ægir. The Wind is so strong that he moves large oceans, and stirs up his brother the Fire.
Ægir and Ran have nine beautiful daughters, who live in the sea, and the waves are named after them. These daughters often go three together, and the winds awake them from their sleep. They are not partial to men, and are always seen in storms. All had names emblematic of the waves. They are called Himinglœfa, the Heaven Glittering; Dufa, the Dove; Blodughadda, the Bloody-haired; Hefring, the Hurling, or Heaving; Ud, the Loving; Hrönn, the Towering; Bylgja, the Billowing, or Swelling; Bara, the Lashing; Kolga, the Cooling.
Ægir and Ran were not to let Ivar’s fleet go home quietly. The ships were hardly out of sight of land when the sky became dark and threatening, the clouds hung low and moved with great rapidity, the wind kept increasing in violence, the waves rose higher and higher, and the North Sea was like a sheet of white foam. The sails were reefed on board of several vessels, but Ivar had, like his father, made a vow that he would never reef a sail. The Elidi rose over the waves as if she were a sea-gull, and was so easily steered that the people believed and declared that she understood the human voice. From the southwest, the wind shifted suddenly to the northwest, and alternate gusts of wind and rain followed each other in quick succession.
“It is good,” suddenly exclaimed Hjalmar, “that no man knows his fate beforehand; his mind is thus free from anxiety and sorrow.”
“The day was fine this morning,” answered Ivar, “but after all, a day should be praised at night, a woman after she is buried, a sword after it is tried, ice when it has been crossed over, and a voyage after it is ended.”