In the high castle of Drontheim many knights sat assembled to hold
council for the weal of the realm; and joyously they caroused
together till midnight around the huge stone table in the vaulted
hall. A rising storm drove the snow wildly against the rattling
windows; all the oak doors groaned, the massive locks shook, the
castle-clock slowly and heavily struck the hour of one. Then a boy,
pale as death, with disordered hair and closed eyes, rushed into the
hall, uttering a wild scream of terror. He stopped beside the richly
carved seat of the mighty Biorn, clung to the glittering knight with
both his hands, and shrieked in a piercing voice, "Knight and father!
father and knight! Death and another are closely pursuing me!"

An awful stillness lay like ice on the whole assembly, save that the
boy screamed ever the fearful words. But one of Biorn's numerous
retainers, an old esquire, known by the name of Rolf the Good,
advanced towards the terrified child, took him in his arms, and half
chanted this prayer: "0 Father, help Thy servant! I believe, and yet
I cannot believe." The boy, as if in a dream, at once loosened his
hold of the knight; and the good Rolf bore him from the hall
unresisting, yet still shedding hot tears and murmuring confused
sounds.

The lords and knights looked at one another much amazed, until the
mighty Biorn said, wildly and fiercely laughing, "Marvel not at that
strange boy. He is my only son; and has been thus since he was five
years old: he is now twelve. I am therefore accustomed to see him
so; though, at the first, I too was disquieted by it. The attack
comes upon him only once in the year, and always at this same time.
But forgive me for having spent so many words on my poor Sintram, and