“The men of the ship have told ye of the fight; how in the south, off Lolland, they met a Viking-ship which attacked them. How they fought and drove the Viking; how that the Viking led them along the coast till, our men weary with rowing, there came two fresh ships from a bay, hidden, friends of the Viking; and how that Lord Sigmund died in the fight, and how that our men fled north, while the Vikings shouted; and our ship ye have seen!
“On the sixth day after this, at the sunrise, let the ship be ready with new oars; the ship’s men will stay here to rest. I shall take the men that I call my guard; those who hunt bears with me in the forest. But let the dragon’s-neck remain broken.”
This he said, and the men were silent, the old ship’s crew sitting, looking dejectedly along the board, their ale undrunk, and shuffling their feet in the rushes. Then there was drinking one to another while the women took down the men’s axes and armour-coats from the walls and carried them off to their houses to clean them; and there was laughter and boasting and talking loud making up courage, and some got up from their places and went seriously out of the hall to the houses and to their children, and some talked to the men of the ship’s crew.
Thus the evening passed, and the men went home to their beds early, save for a few who sat down with made-up indifference and talked, while their beer-mugs stood on the benches till they grew warm in the firelight.
So the next six days we worked and made ready, hewing and smoothing new oars, and whetting our knives on the grind-stone; and at sunrise on the sixth day, with a long crowd of men and women on the strand and the rain pouring down out of the misty brown sky, we hauled our ship down the beach and setting ourselves in our places rowed splashingly away from the castle; while the fine rain ran down our faces and the shouting grew faint in the distance.
And so passes that part of my tale and I take up the second.
Now there come two months, O king, that are as difficult to see clearly as the length of a flame in the sunshine.
We sailed south to Lolland, but we could find no word of a large ship with a plain prow and a new crew.
And we landed on many shores, and much I learned of the art of minstrelsy.
And Lord Snorē managed his men well and was a kind lord over us, though fierce, and long of anger.