HOW THE STAR FLEW INTO MANY PIECES, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.


What a glorious thing it is to be young and full of life! Ulf went out
of the long hall so delighted that he hardly knew whether his feet did
not have wings; and he went straight to the shore of the vik, climbed
up into one of the longships, made his way to the lofty prow and sat
down to think it over. That prow curved upward and over like a great
swan's neck, with a dragon's head carved on the end, and he noted with
curious eyes how here and there could be seen a splintered scar and in
it perhaps still the arrow-head that made it. He dug one out and
looked at it, with a sniff of contempt. He knew he could make a better
one himself. He did not know that that arrow-head was made in a
faraway island, called Britain, where traders went to buy tin. British
arrow-heads have been great travellers.

The sight of the weapon, however, and the hole it had made gave Ulf
just the tail-end of an idea! He began to think, oh, so hard!--to
think and to plan.

Up in a sheltered corner lay the Iron Star, just where it first had
been flung down by its weary-armed bearers on the day when it reached
the vik. Ulf's first free act had been to arrange a few bits of bark
over it to keep it from the weather; and, being out of sight, of
course it was forgotten. But Ulf remembered! That Star had always been
the good fortune of his family. Could it not help him now? So he sat
and planned, till the grey gulls ceased their restless circling over
the waters of the fjord and went to rest. But while he thought his
hardest, still through it all he seemed to hear, like a golden hum
woven in and out of the fabric of his dreamsong of freedom, the voice