Well: this was a great battle, and king Harald won a glorious victory. While his men drove the rout before him, the brothers were shoulder to shoulder; and they fell upon nine men at once and fought them. And while they were at it, Cormac sang:—
(54)
“Fight on, arrow-driver, undaunted,
And down with the foemen of Harald!
What are nine? they are nought! Thou and I, lad,
Are enough;—they are ours!—we have won them!
But—at home,—in the arms of an outlaw
That all the gods loathe for a monster,
So white and so winsome she nestles
—Yet once she was loving to me!”
“It always comes down to that!” said Thorgils. When the fight was over, the brothers had got the victory, and the nine men had fallen before them; for which they won great praise from the king, and many honours beside.
But while they were ever with the king in his warfarings, Thorgils was aware that Cormac was used to sleep but little; and he asked why this might be. This was the song Cormac made in answer:—
(55)
“Surf on a rock-bound shore of the sea-king's blue domain—
Look how it lashes the crags, hark how it thunders again!
But all the din of the isles that the Delver heaves in foam
In the draught of the undertow glides out to the sea-gods'
home.
Now, which of us two should test? Is it thou, with thy
heart at ease,
Or I that am surf on the shore in the tumult of angry seas?
—Drawn, if I sleep, to her that shines with the ocean-
gleam,
—Dashed, when I wake, to woe, for the want of my
glittering dream.”
“And now let me tell you this, brother,” he went on. “Hereby I give out that I am going back to Iceland.”
Said Thorgils, “There is many a snare set for thy feet, brother, to drag thee down, I know not whither.”
But when the king heard of his longing to begone, he sent for Cormac, and said that he did unwisely, and would hinder him from his journey. But all this availed nothing, and aboard ship he went.
At the outset they met with foul winds, so that they shipped great seas, and the yard broke. Then Cormac sang:—
(56)
“I take it not ill, like the Tinker
If a trickster had foundered his muck-sled;
For he loves not rough travelling, the losel,
And loath would he be of this uproar.
I flinch not,—nay, hear it, ye fearless
Who flee not when arrows are raining,—
Though the steeds of the ocean be storm-bound
And stayed in the harbour of Solund.”