Bridge, like the Gods. I know of the place. It is called Gundbiorn's Reef
and it is beyond the world."

All this befell in Biorn's eleventh summer. The winter which followed
brought ill luck to Hightown and notably to Ironbeard the King. For in the
autumn the Queen, that gentle lady, fell sick, and, though leeches were
sought for far and near, and spells and runes were prepared by all who had
skill of them, her life ebbed fast and ere Yule she was laid in the Howe of
the Dead. The loss of her made Thorwald grimmer and more silent than
before, and there was no feasting at the Yule high-tide and but little at
the spring merry-making. As for Biorn he sorrowed bitterly for a week, and
then, boylike, forgot his grief in the wonder of living.

But that winter brought death in another form. Storms never ceased, and in
the New Year the land lay in the stricture of a black frost which froze the
beasts in the byres and made Biorn shiver all the night through, though in
ordinary winter weather he was hardy enough to dive in the ice-holes. The
stock of meal fell low, and when spring tarried famine drew very near. Such
a spring no man living remembered. The snow lay deep on the shore till far
into May. And when the winds broke they were cold sunless gales which
nipped the young life in the earth. The ploughing was backward, and the
seed-time was a month too late. The new-born lambs died on the fells and
there fell a wasting sickness among the cattle. Few salmon ran up the
streams, and the sea-fish seemed to have gone on a journey. Even in summer,
the pleasant time, food was scarce, for the grass in the pastures was poor
and the cows gave little milk, and the children died. It foreboded a black
harvest-time and a blacker winter.

With these misfortunes a fever rose in the blood of the men of Hightown.
Such things had happened before for the Norland was never more than one