Hrolf Kraki's Saga Read Online Free PDF

your unasked question, I tell you as I earlier told your men, I do
not
know where Hroar and Helgi Halfdansson are.”
    “No,” sneered the king. “Not within a foot or two.” Nevertheless he kept from pressing the matter. He could not afford to goad those folk who looked upon Regin as their leader.
    Vifil saw where the ship went, and either guessed or foreknew what happened. He called the boys to him and said: “Here you can bide no longer. We’ll be under too narrow a watch, the more so when men of the neighborhood will’ve given up hope of overthrowing Frodhi. Tonight I’ll ferry you over. Stay off the highroads while you get out of this shire.”
    “Where should we go?” wondered Hroar.
    “Well,” said Vifil, “I’ve heard as how Sævil Jarl is your brother-in-law. He’ll have a big household, where none’ll much mark a couple of newcomers. But he too is now the king’s handfast man, so don’t you go straight off giving yourselves away to him, or to anybody. Lynx cubs got to fare wary.”
    IV
    Sævil and Signy dwelt near Haven. Each year when the herring ran, this hamlet came aswarm with fishermen who had beaten their way south down the Kattegat or north out of Baltic waters; merchants joined them, and it roared among the booths ashore. In other seasons Haven was a base for warcraft which lay out on watch lest vikings slip by to harry the Danish coasts. Thus it was no small charge which Sævil had and he was not a man to whom Frodhi would willingly give grave offense. Maybe one reason the king married Signy’s mother was to try to make a bond between himself and the strand-jarl.
    When the English first came hither, their great men doubtless built halls like those in the Northlands. They do no more. Let me therefore tell about such a house. It is a long wooden building, with a roof of sod or of shakes, oft-times a clerestory; the beam-ends are apt to be carved in fanciful shapes. If there are two floors, a gallery runs around the walls. Windows are shuttered in bad weather, and belike covered by thin-scraped skins. Inside, one enters through a foreroom, where feet are wiped and outer garments left hanging. Unless the lord is suspicious and commands his guests to leave their weapons here as well, these are brought into the main room and hung up, that the luster of metal and of the painted leather on shields help brighten its gloom.
    The ground floor of the hall is hard-packed earth, thickly strewn with rushes, juniper boughs, or other sweet things, often changed. Down the middle run two or three trenches, or sometimes only one, wherein roar the long-fires, that servants feed with wood taken from stacks at the far end. Flanking them goes a double row of great wooden pillars, upbearing the top floor, or the rafters if there is none. They too are graven and colored, to show gods or heroes or beasts and intertwining vines. Against the wainscoted walls, earthern platforms raise the benches a foot or two above the floor. In the middleof one wall, commonly the north, stands the high seat of the master and his lady, held by two lesser posts which are especially holy. Straight across the chamber is a slightly lower seat for the most honored guest. Between the weapons ablink behind the benches are other carvings, skins, horns, torches or rushlights flaring in their sconces.
    At mealtimes the women and servants set trestles in front of the benches and lay boards across them. On these go meat and drink, prepared usually in a separate cookhouse for dread of wildfire. Later the tables are removed, and when men have drunk enough, those of higher standing stretch out on the benches to sleep; their followers use the floor.
    Shut-beds for the master, mistress, and chief guests may be at either end; or there may be upper rooms; or there may be a bower standing aside from the hall, a narrow building of one or two floors where women spin and weave by day in well-lighted airiness, and at night the well-born sleep free from