We made angry battle;
Fire played about the seats of men.
We let the bloody corpses
Fall asleep in the town-gates.
“Then they drank together, and were very merry that evening, and the next day too. Then the Vikings went to their ships, and they separated from the jarl in friendship and exchanged gifts” (Egil’s Saga, c. 48).
Sometimes high-born maidens entertained their guests alone.
Hjalti, Gizur, and Óttar, the skalds of St. Olaf, went to Sweden in order to reconcile the king to St. Olaf.
“They went one day to the house of the king’s daughter Ingigerd; she sat and drank with many men. She received them well, for they were known to her.... They sat there the greater part of the day and drank; she put many questions to Hjalti, and asked him to come often and talk with her. He did so” (St. Olaf’s Saga, c. 71 (Heimskringla)).
At the end of a feast presents were given to the guests.
Thorgeir, the famous Godir (lawman), who accepted Christianity on the people’s behalf at the Althing A.D. 1000, made a feast.