for many generations. My father told me that it was the sword of one
Thorgrimmer, his ancestor, a Norseman, a Viking he called him, who came
with those who took England before the Norman time; which I can well
believe since my father's name, like mine, till I married, was Grimmer.
This sword, also, has a name and it is Wave-Flame. With it, the tale
tells, Thorgrimmer did great deeds, slaying many after their heathen
fashion in his battles by land and sea. For he was a wanderer, and it is
said of him that once he sailed to a new land far across the ocean, and
won home again after many strange adventures, to die at last here in
England in some fray. That is all I know, save that a learned man from
the north once told my father's father that the writing on the sword
means:--

"He who lifts Wave-Flame on high
In love shall live and in battle die;
Storm-tossed o'er wide seas shall roam
And in strange lands shall make his home.
Conquering, conquered shall he be,
And far away shall sleep with me.

"Those were the words which I remember because of the jingle of them;
also because such seems to have been the fate of Thorgrimmer and the
sword that his grandson took from his tomb."

Here I would have asked about this grandson and the tomb, but having no
time, held my peace.

"All my life have I kept that sword," went on my mother, "not giving it
to your father or brothers, lest the fate written on it should befall
them, for those old wizards of the north, who fashioned such weapons