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On the cairn are fixed her eyes
Where her murdered father lies,
And a voice remote and drear
She seems to hear.

What a bridal night is this?
Cold will be the dagger's kiss;
Laden with the chill of death
Is its breath.

Like the drifting snow she sweeps
To the couch where Olaf sleeps;
Suddenly he wakes and stirs,
His eyes meet hers.

"What is that," King Olaf said,
"Gleams so bright above thy head?
Wherefore standest thou so white
In pale moonlight?"

""Tis the bodkin that I wear When at night I bind my hair;

It woke me falling on the floor; "Tis nothing more."

"Forests have ears, and fields have eyes; Often treachery lurking lies Underneath the fairest hair!

Gudrun beware!"

Ere the earliest peep of morn
Blew King Olaf's bugle-horn;
And forever sundered ride

Bridegroom and bride!

IX.

THANGBRAND THE PRIEST.

SHORT of stature, large of limb,
Burly face and russet beard,
All the women stared at him,
When in Iceland he appeared.
"Look!" they said,

With nodding head,

"There goes Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest."

All the prayers he knew by rote,

He could preach like Chrysostome,

From the Fathers he could quote,
He had even been at Rome.
A learned clerk,

A man of mark,

Was this Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.

He was quarrelsome and loud,
And impatient of control,
Boisterous in the market crowd,
Boisterous at the wassail-bowl,
Everywhere

Would drink and swear, Swaggering Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.

In his house this malecontent

Could the King no longer bear,
So to Iceland he was sent

To convert the heathen there,
And away

One summer day

Sailed this Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.

There in Iceland, o'er their books
Pored the people day and night,
But he did not like their looks,
Nor the songs they used to write.
"All this rhyme

Is waste of time!"

Grumbled Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.

To the alehouse, where he sat,
Came the Scalds and Saga-men;

Is it to be wondered at,

That they quarrelled now and then,
When o'er his beer
Began to leer

Drunken Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest?

All the folk in Alftafiord

Boasted of their island grand;

Saying in a single word,

"Iceland is the finest land

That the sun

Doth shine upon!"

Loud laughed Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.

And he answered: "What's the use

Of this bragging up and down,
When three women and one goose
Make a market in your town!"
Every Scald

Satires scrawled

On poor Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.

Something worse they did than that;
And what vexed him most of all

Was a figure in shovel hat,

Drawn in charcoal on the wall;
With words that go
Sprawling below,

"This is Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest."

Hardly knowing what he did,

Then he smote them might and main,

Thorvald Veile and Veterlid

Lay there in the alehouse slain.
"To-day we are gold,

To-morrow mould!"

Muttered Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.

Much in fear of axe and rope,

Back to Norway sailed he then.

"O, King Olaf! little hope

Is there of these Iceland men!"
Meekly said,

With bending head,

Pious Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.

Longfellow. III,

5

X.

RAUD THE STRONG.

"ALL the old gods are dead,

All the wild warlocks fled;

But the White Christ lives and reigns, And throughout my wide domains

His Gospel shall be spread!"

On the Evangelists

Thus swore King Olaf.

But still in dreams of the night
Beheld he the crimson light,
And heard the voice that defied
Him who was crucified

And challenged him to the fight.
To Sigurd the Bishop
King Olaf confessed it.

And Sigurd the Bishop said,
"The old Gods are not dead,
For the great Thor still reigns,
And among the Jarls and Thanes
The old witchcraft still is spread."
Thus to King Olaf

Said Sigurd the Bishop.

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