gathered."

"What if one comes late?"

"He swings overhead and screams, and goes back to his place; then no
more come."

"Ay," he said; "you will make a sailor yet, son Raven, for you watch
things. Now I will tell you what I saw today. There was the one kite
sailing over my head as I was at the ship garth, and presently it
screamed so that I looked up. Then it left its wide circles over the
town, and flew northward, straight as an arrow. Then from the southward
came another, following it, and after that another, and yet others, all
going north. And far off I could see where others flew, and they too
went north. And presently flapped over me the ravens in the wake of the
kites, and the great sea eagles came in screaming and went the same way,
and so for all the time that I was at the ship, and until I came home."

"There is a sacrifice to the Asir somewhere," I said, "for the birds of
Odin and Thor have always their share."

My father shook his head.

"The birds cry to one another, as I think, and say when the feast is but
enough for those that have gathered. They have cried now that there is
room for all at some great feasting. Once have I seen the like before,
and that was when I was with the ship guard when the jarl fought his
great battle in the Orkneys; we knew that he had fought by the same token."

But my mother said that I was surely right. There was no fear of battle