Long after King Estein had joined his fathers on the little holm
beyond Hernersfiord, and Helgi, Earl of Askland, had become but a
warlike memory, the skalds of Sogn still sang this tale of Vandrad
the Viking. It contained much wonderful magic, and some
astonishingly hard strokes, as they told it; but reading between
their lines, the magic bears a strong resemblance to many spells
cast even at this day, and as for the sword strokes, there was
need for them to be hard in Norway then. For that was the age of
the making of many kingdoms, and the North was beginning to do its
share.

One May morning, more than a thousand years ago, so the story
runs, an old man came slowly along a woodland track that uncoiled
itself from the mountain passes and snow-crowned inlands of
Norway. Presently the trees grew thinner, and grass and wild
flowers spread on either hand, and at last, just where the path
dipped down to the water-side at Hernersfiord, the traveller
stopped. For a while he remained there in the morning sunshine,
watching the scene below, and now and then speaking out his
thoughts absently in the rapt manner of a visionary.

Though his clothes were old and weather-stained, and bare of any
ornament, his face and bearing were such as strike the mind at
once and stay in the memory. He was tall and powerfully framed,
and bore his years and the white volume of his beard in an
altogether stately fashion; but his eyes were most indelible, pale
blue and singularly cold in repose, very bright and keen and
searching when his face was animated.