thralls sat at suppertime.

Not one of those sagas, as they were called, did he miss. When he by
daytime watched the sheep he thought of them, and told them over to
himself. Thus he learned of other lands. He learned of Thor, and Odin,
and the other gods which the Jarl worshipped with all his men, since
they had never heard of the one true God, our Father of all. And he
knew the Jarl believed that if a man was brave, and honest, and told
the truth and lived a life pleasing to the gods, that pleasant things
would happen to him after death. This was a much better thing to
believe than to think that death was the end of everything, as they
thought in the Forestland in those days. So he liked the sagas.

But Ulf the Silent was not always as silent as his name would imply.
One night after supper, when the cattle had been fed, the chores were
done, and the boys and girls were skipping stones on the beach
together, the largest boy, Thorold, had proved that he could throw a
stone the furthest, but grew quite angry because he could not make one
skip along the water as many times as Ulf. He said many things that
were not nice to hear, and finally cried,

"I am a freeman's son and thou art only a thrall. And I am the
stronger," shaking his fist in the other's face.

"So is an ox," said Ulf, quietly, and Edith Fairhair cried out "Good!"
Ulf was her thrall, and she did not like Thorold, anyway. He was too
rough because he was strong, and too stupid. Then said Ulf,

"If Sigurd was Jarl only because he is strong, Thorolf would be Jarl
in his stead."