would suffer it still less, and Iduna herself seemed to grow cold.
In truth, I believe he thought of killing me and sending my head as a
present to your father Thorvald. But this Iduna forbade, whether because
she loved me or for other reasons, I cannot say. Olaf, you know the
rest."

"Aye, Steinar, I know the rest. Iduna is lost to me, and for that
perhaps I should thank you, although such a thrust as this leaves the
heart sore for life. My father, my mother, my brother--all are lost to
me, and you, too, who were as my twin, are about to be lost. Night has
you all, and with you a hundred other men, because of the madness that
was bred in you by the eyes of Iduna the Fair, who also is lost to
both of us. Steinar, I do not blame you, for I know yours was a madness
which, for their own ends, the gods send upon men, naming it love. I
forgive you, Steinar, if I have aught to forgive, and I tell you, so
weary am I of this world, which I feel holds little that is good, that,
if I might, I'd yield up my life instead of yours, and go to seek the
others, though I doubt whether I should find them, since I think that
our roads are different. Hark! the priests call me. Steinar, there's no
need to bid you to be brave, for who of our Northern race is not? That's
our one heritage: the courage of a bull. Yet it seems to me that there
are other sorts of courage which we lack: to tread the dark ways of
death with eyes fixed on things gentler and better than we know. Pray
to our gods, Steinar, since they are the best we have to pray to,
though dark and bloody in their ways; pray that we may meet again, where
priests and swords are not and women work no ruin, where we may love as
we once loved in childhood and there is no more sin. Fare you well, my
brother Steinar, yet not for ever, for sure I am that here we did not
begin and here we shall not end. Oh! Steinar, Steinar, who could have
dreamed that this would be the last of all our happy fellowship?"