So for some years my father, stout warrior as he proved himself in many
a fight at his lord's side, traded peacefully---that is, so long as
men would suffer him to do so; for it happened more than once that his
ship was boarded by Vikings, who in the end went away, finding that they
had made a mistake in thinking that they had found a prize in a harmless
trader, for Grim was wont to man his ship with warriors, saying that
what was worth trading was worth keeping. I mind me how once he came to
England with a second cargo, won on the high seas from a Viking's
plunder, which the Viking brought alongside our ship, thinking to add
our goods thereto. Things went the other way, and we left him only an
empty ship, which maybe was more than he would have spared to us. That
was on my second voyage, when I was fifteen.

Mostly my father traded to England, for there are few of the Saxon kin
who take ship for themselves, and the havens to which he went were
Tetney and Saltfleet, on the Lindsey shore of Humber, where he soon had
friends.

So Grim prospered and waxed rich fast, and in the spring of the year
wherein the story begins was getting the ship ready for the first cruise
of the season, meaning to be afloat early; for then there was less
trouble with the wild Norse Viking folk, for one cruise at least. Then
happened that which set all things going otherwise than he had planned,
and makes my story worth telling.

We---that is my father Grim, Leva my mother, my two brothers and
myself, and our two little sisters, Gunhild and Solva---sat quietly in
our great room, busy at one little thing or another, each in his way,
before the bright fire that burned on the hearth in the middle of the