viking's vessels. After that we dwelt in Sigurd's great house in
Kirkwall, and made many raids on the Sutherland and Caithness
shores. I saw some hard fighting there, for the Scots are no babes
at weapon play.

Then when I was nineteen, and a good leader, as they said, the
words that my mother spoke to Jarl Rognvald came true, and he died
even as he had slain my father.

For Halfdan and Gudrod, Harald Fairhair's sons, deeming that the
Jarl stood in their way to power in Norway, burned him in his hall
by night, and so my feud was at an end. But the king would in
nowise forgive his sons for the slaying of his friend, and outlawed
them. Whereon Halfdan came and fell on us in the Orkneys; and that
was unlucky for him, for we beat him, and Jarl Einar avenged on him
his father's death.

Now through this it came to pass that I saw Norway for the last
time, for I went thither in Einar's best ship to learn if Harald
meant to make the Orkneys pay for the death of his son--which was
likely, for a son is a son even though he be an outlaw.

So I came to my mother's place first of all, and full of joy and
pleasant thoughts was I as we sailed into the well-remembered fiord
to seek the little town at its head. And when we came there, nought
but bitterest sorrow and wrath was ours; for the town was a black
heap of ruin, and the few men who were left showed me where the
kindly hands of the hill folk had laid my mother, the queen, in a
little mound, after the Danish vikings, who had fallen suddenly on
the place with fire and sword, had gone. They had grown thus bold