it worth while to go so far inland I cannot say; but a war-party did
get as far as Ulf's village on a plundering expedition, perhaps hoping
to find gold.

They did not find any, but they did find Ulf, who happened to be
making such a hammering that he did not hear what was going on till it
was too late to run; so he did the next best thing, and fought like a
wolf. Now, if there was one thing that the Northmen valued more than
another it was courage, and their leader was so pleased with the lad's
pluck that--after he had picked one of his arrows out of his own arm
and had warded off with some trouble various lightning-like jabs of a
copper knife--he directed his men to "throw a noose over that young
wildcat" and bring him along, together with what other treasure they
might find.

Among that treasure was the Iron Star. Not that they knew its story,
but because they knew iron when they saw it, and what iron was good
for. So that is how Ulf and the Star together first saw the sea
shining in the sun as it lapped in and around the black ledges of a
Norway fjord, as the inlets of that rocky land are called. But it was
a weary journey thither.

What a strange sight was the glistening sea to Ulf, a son of the
Forest! During the long march he had learned much of the language of
his captors--it was somewhat like his own; so, when the leader turned
on the brow of a hill and cried in a thundering cheer, "The vik! the
vik!" he knew that the rockbound harbour and the end of the journey
were in sight. What a harbour really was he had no idea. When the men
raced up the hill he ran too, till the sight struck him dumb.