The fleet that left the fiord consisted of the longships of Ulf, Haldor, Erling, Glumm, and Guttorm, besides an innumerable flotilla of smaller crafts and boats. Many of the men were well armed, not only with first-rate weapons, but with complete suits of excellent mail of the kinds peculiar to the period—such as shirts of leather, with steel rings sewed thickly over them, and others covered with steel scales—while of the poorer bonders and the thralls some wore portions of defensive armour, and some trusted to the thick hides of the wolf, which were more serviceable against a sword-cut than many people might suppose. All had shields, however, and carried either swords, bills, spears, javelins, axes, or bows and arrows, so that, numbering as they did, about a thousand men, they composed a formidable host.
While these rowed away over the fiord to the Springs to make war or peace—as the case might be—with King Harald, a disappointed spirit was left behind in Horlingdal.
“I’m sure I cannot see why I should not be allowed to go too,” said little Alric, on returning to Haldorstede, after seeing the fleet set forth. “Of course I cannot fight so well as Erling yet, but I can do something in that way; and can even face up to a full-grown man when occasion serves, as that red-haired Dane knows full well, methinks, if he has got any power of feeling in his neck!”
This was said to Herfrida, who was in the great hall spreading the board for the midday meal, and surrounded by her maidens, some of whom were engaged in spinning or carding wool, while others wove and sewed, or busied themselves about household matters.
“Have patience, my son,” said Herfrida. “Thou art not yet strong enough to go forth to battle. Doubtless, in three or four years—”
“Three or four years!” exclaimed Alric, to whom such a space of time appeared an age. “Why, there will be no more fighting left to be done at the end of three or four years. Does not father say that if the King succeeds in his illegal plans all the independence of the small kings will be gone for ever, and—and—of course I am old enough to see that if the small kings are not allowed to do as they please, there will be no more occasion for war—nothing but a dull time of constant peace!”
Herfrida laughed lightly, while her warlike son strutted up and down the ancestral hall like a bantam cock, frowning and grunting indignantly, as he brooded over the dark prospects of peace that threatened his native land, and thought of his own incapacity, on account of youth, to make glorious hay while yet the sun of war was shining.
“Mother,” he said, stopping suddenly, and crossing his arms, as he stood with his feet planted pretty wide apart, after the fashion of those who desire to be thought very resolute— “mother, I had a dream last night.”
“Tell it me, my son,” said Herfrida, sitting down on a low stool beside the lad.
Now, it must be known that in those days the Northmen believed in dreams and omens and warnings—indeed, they were altogether a very superstitious people, having perfect faith in giants, good and bad; elves, dark and bright; wraiths, and fetches, and guardian spirits—insomuch that there was scarcely one among the grown-up people who had not seen some of these fabulous creatures, or who had not seen some other people who had either seen them themselves or had seen individuals who said they had seen them! There were also many “clear-sighted” or “fore-sighted” old men and women, who not only saw goblins and supernatural appearances occasionally, and, as it were, accidentally, like ordinary folk, but who also had the gift—so it is said—of seeing such things when they pleased—enjoyed, as it were, an unenviable privilege in that way. It was therefore with unusual interest that Herfrida asked about her son’s dream.