pools. But best he loved to go up the firth in the boat which Leif had made
him--a finished, clinker-built little model of a war galley, christened the
Joy-maker--and catch the big sea fish. Monsters he caught sometimes in the
deep water under the cliffs, till he thought he was destined to repeat the
exploit of Thor when he went fishing with the giant Hymi, and hooked
the Midgard Serpent, the brother of Fenris-wolf, whose coils encircle the
earth.

Nor was his education neglected. Arnwulf the Bearsark taught him axe-play
and sword-play, and he had a small buckler of his own, not of linden-wood
like those of the Wick folk, but of wickerwork after the fashion of his
mother's people. He learned to wrestle toughly with the lads of his own
age, and to throw a light spear truly at a mark. He was fleet of foot and
scoured the fells like a goat, and he could breast the tide in the pool of
the great foss up to the very edge of the white water where the trolls
lived.

There was a wise woman dwelt on the bay of Sigg. Katla was her name, a
woman still black-browed though she was very old, and clever at mending
hunters' scars. To her house Biorn went with Leif; and when they had made a
meal of her barley-cakes and sour milk, and passed the news of the coast,
Leif would fall to probing her craft and get but surly answers. To the
boy's question she was kinder. "Let the dead things be, prince," she said.
"There's small profit from foreknowledge. Better to take fates as they come
sudden round a turn of the road than be watching them with an anxious heart
all the way down the hill. The time will come soon enough when you must
stand by the Howe of the Dead and call on the ghost-folk."

But Leif coaxed and Biorn harped on the thing, as boys do, and one night
about the midsummer time her hour came upon Katla and she spoke without