Svend, with Harald and Robert his two brethren, went their ways to the queen, and found her sitting alone in a fair court of the
palace full of flowers, with a marble cloister round about it; and when she saw them coming, she rose up to meet them, her three fair sons.
Truly as that right royal woman bent over them lovingly, there seemed little need of Siur’s question.
So Svend showed her his dagger, but not the crown; and she asked many questions concerning Siur the smith, about his way of talking and his face, the colour of his hair even, till the boys wondered, she questioned them so closely, with beaming eyes and glowing cheeks, so that Svend thought he had never before seen his mother look so beautiful.
Then Svend said: ‘And, mother, don’t be angry with Siur, will you? because he sent a message to you by me.’
‘Angry!’ and straightway her soul was wandering where her body could not come, and for a moment or two she was living as before, with him close by her, in the old mountain land.
‘Well, mother, he wanted me to ask you if you were happy now.’
‘Did he, Svend, this man with brown hair, grizzled as you say it is now? Is his hair soft then, this Siur, going down on to his shoulders in waves? and his eyes, do they glow steadily, as if lighted up from his heart? and how does
he speak? Did you not tell me that his words led you, whether you would or no, into dreamland? Ah well! tell him I am happy, but not so happy as we shall be, as we were. And so you, son Robert, are getting to be quite a cunning smith; but do you think you will ever beat Siur?’
‘Ah, mother, no,’ he said, ‘there is something with him that makes him seem quite infinitely beyond all other workmen I ever heard of.’