There were thirty men seated there, and although they heard the words, they did not show by a single glance that they feared to meet their doom.
Just then Swart of the Springs came up. He had a great axe in his hands, and was very furious.
“Thou hast killed and burned my wife, children, and homestede,” he said fiercely, addressing the prisoner who sat at the end of the log, “but thou shalt never return to Denmark to tell it.”
He cut at him with the axe as he spoke, and the man fell dead. One after another Swart killed them. There was one who looked up and said—
“I will stick this fish bone that I have in my hand into the earth, if it be so that I know anything after my head is cut off.”
His head was immediately cut off, but the fish bone fell from his hand.
Beside him there sat a very handsome young man with long hair, who twisted his hair over his head, stretched out his neck, and said, “Don’t make my hair bloody.”
A man took the hair in his hands and held it fast. Then Swart hewed with his axe, but the Dane twitched his head back so strongly, that he who was holding his hair fell forward; the axe cut off both his hands, and stuck fast in the earth.
“Who is that handsome man?” asked Ulf.
The man replied with look of scorn, “I am Einar, the son of King Thorkel of Denmark; and know thou for a certainty that many shall fall to avenge my death.”