of the lands; and thereafter had built the hall, and made the
haven, and won a few fields from the once barren hillside. And now
we had been well to do, till this foe came and ended all.

They were not Norsemen either. The Orkney jarls were our friends,
and for us Harald cared not. Norsemen on the Viking path we knew
and welcomed, and being of that brotherhood ourselves, we had
nothing to fear from them. It is true that we owned no king or
overlord, but if the Scots king asked for scatt we paid it,
grumbling, for the sake of peace. My father was wont to call it
rent for the hillsides we tilled.

Yet it would have been better to be swept out of the land by the
Scots we won it from, than to be ruined thus for no reason but that
of wanton savagery and lust of plunder, as it seemed. At least they
would have given us fair warning that they meant to end our stay
among them, and take the place we had made into their own hands.

Well, no doubt, I should find out more presently. Meanwhile, as I
have said, I cared for naught, lying still without a word. Then the
men from out of the hall were brought and set with us; for, blinded
as they were with the smoke, it had been easy to take them. That
one who was set down next me was black from head to foot and
scorched with the burning, but he tried to laugh as his eyes met
mine. It was Dalfin of Maghera, the Irish guest who was with us. He
had taken a passage in a Norse ship from Belfast, meaning to see
lands across the sea, and had bided here when he found that we
could show him hunting such as he had never heard of. The mighty
aurochs still fed on our hills, and we told tales in hall when
guests wondered at the great heads that were on the walls, of how