had been found as a child on the high fells. Some said he was come of the
Finns, and his ill-wishers would have it that his birthplace had been
behind a foss, and that he had the blood of dwarves in him. Yet though he
made sport for the company, he had respect from them, for he was wise in
many things, a skilled leech, a maker of runes, and a crafty builder of
ships. He was a master hand at riddles, and for hours the housecarles would
puzzle their wits over his efforts. This was the manner of them. "Who,"
Leif would ask, "are the merry maids that glide above the land to the joy
of their father; in winter they bear a white shield, but black in summer?"
The answer was "Snowflakes and rain." Or "I saw a corpse sitting on a
corpse, a blind one riding on a lifeless steed?" to which the reply was "A
dead horse on an ice-floe." Biorn never guessed any of the riddles, but the
cleverness of them he thought miraculous, and the others roared with glee
at their own obtuseness.

But Leif had different moods, for sometimes he would tell tales, and all
were hushed in a pleasant awe. The fire on the hearth was suffered to die
down, and men drew closer to each other, as Leif told of the tragic love of
Helgi and Sigrun, or how Weyland outwitted King Nidad, or how Thor went as
bride to Thrym in Giantland, and the old sad tale of how Sigurd
Fafnirsbane, noblest of men, went down to death for the love of a queen not
less noble. Leif told them well, so that his hearers were held fast with
the spell of wonder and then spurred to memories of their own. Tongues
would be loosened, and there would be wild recollections of battles among
the skerries of the west, of huntings in the hills where strange sights
greeted the benighted huntsman, and of voyaging far south into the lands of
the sun where the poorest thrall wore linen and the cities were all gold
and jewels. Biorn's head would be in such a whirl after a night of
story-telling that he could get no sleep for picturing his own deeds when
he was man enough to bear a sword and launch his ship. And sometimes in his