the past comes to me, if little of the future, and I believe that this
Wanderer and you have more to do with each other than we can guess.
It may be even that this task is appointed to you and that all these
happenings, which are but begun, work to an end unseen. At the least,
try your fortune, and if you die--why, I who was your nurse from your
mother's knee, love you well enough to die with you. Together we'll
descend to Hela's halls, there to seek out the Wanderer and learn his
story."

Then, throwing her arms about my neck, she drew me to her and kissed me
on the brow.

"I was not your mother, Olaf," she went on, "but, to be honest, I would
have been could I have had my fancy though, strangely enough, I never
felt thus towards Ragnar, your brother. Now, why do you make me talk
foolishness? Come hither, and I will show you the entrance to the grave;
it is where the sun first strikes upon it."

Then she led me to the east of the mound, where, not more than eight or
ten feet from its base, grew a patch of bushes. Among these bushes was
a little hollow, as though at this spot the earth had sunk in. Here, at
her bidding, I began to dig, and with her help worked for the half of an
hour or more in silence, till at length my spade struck against a stone.

"It is the door-stone," said Freydisa. "Dig round it."

So I dug till I made a hole at the edge of the stone large enough for a
man to creep through. After this we paused to rest a while and to allow
the air within the mound to purify.