know whether Helga, Gilli's daughter, is to be given to Egil. Each time
he speaks across the floor to her, I am as though I were pricked with
sharp knives. I have endured it through three feasts; but I look upon
her with such eyes of love, that I can bear it no longer."

"I will dull those knives, even as Odin blunts the weapons of his
enemies. Helga will not be given to Egil, because he is too haughty to
ask for her since he knows that she loves you instead of him."

It had seemed to Alwin that if he could only know this, he would be
satisfied; yet now his questions piled upon each other.

"Then do you promise that she will be given to me? How am I to save her?
How am I to get my freedom? How long am I to wait?"

The Sibyl sank her head upon her breast so that her nose and chin quite
disappeared, and she stood before them like some furry headless beast.
There was a long pause. Alwin nervously followed the pairs of eyes,
noiselessly appearing and disappearing, from floor to ceiling, in every
part of the room. Sigurd set his back against the door and carried on a
silent struggle with the heavy lumps, hanging by teeth and claws upon
his cloak.

At last Skroppa raised her head and answered haltingly: "You ask too
much, according to the time and the place. To know all that clearly, I
should sit on a witches' platform and eat witches' broth, and have women
stand about me and sing weird songs. Without music, spirits do not like
to help. I can only see bits, vaguely as through a fog... I see your
body lying on the ground I see a ship where never ship was seen before I
see--I see Leif Ericsson standing upon earth where never man stood