marvellous wise with a heavy woodman's axe, which he played with as
if it were a straw for lightness. Even as I entered from the door
on the high place he was whirling it for a mighty stroke which
seemed meant to cleave a horn cup which he had set on a stool
before him, and I wondered. But he stayed the stroke as suddenly as
if his great arms had been turned to steel, so that the axe edge
rested on the rim of the vessel without so much as notching it, and
at that all the onlookers cheered him.

"Now it may be known," said he, smiling broadly, "why men call me
Thorgils the axeman."

Then he threw the unhandy weapon into the air whirling, and caught
it as it came to hand again, so that it balanced on his palm, and
so he held it as I went to him, and told him the king would speak
with him.

Whereon he threw the axe at the doorpost, so that it stuck there,
and laughed at the new shout of applause, and so turned down his
sleeves and bade me lead him where I would.

He made a stiff, outlandish salute as he stood before Ina, and the
king returned it.

"I have sent for you now, friend, rather than wait for morning," he
said, "for it seems to me that we have business that must be seen
to with the first light. Will you tell us what you know of this man
who has been slain? I think you are no Welshman of Cornwall."

"I am Thorgils the Norseman of Watchet, king," he answered.