persuaded Harald, for the sake of peace, to return to Greenland in the
spring and take a load of valuable timber to sell there, including one
stick of what was called massur-wood, which was as valuable as mahogany,
and may have been at some time borne by ocean currents to the beach. It is
hardly possible that, as some have thought, the colonists established a
regular trade in this wood for no such wood grows on the northern Atlantic
shores. However this may be, the party soon returned, after one winter in
Vinland the Good; and on the way back Harald did one thing which made him
especially dear to his men.

A favorite feat of the Norsemen was to toss three swords in the air and
catch each by the handle as it came down. This was called the
_handsax_ game. The young men used also to try the feat of running
along the oar-blades of the rowers as they were in motion, passing around
the bow of the vessel with a spring and coming round to the stern over the
oars on the other side. Few could accomplish this, but no one but Harald
could do it and play the _handsax_ game as he ran; and when he did
it, they all said that he was the most skilful man at _idrottie_ ever
seen. That was their word for an athletic feat. But presently came a time
when not only his courage but his fairness and justice were to be tried.

It happened in this way. There was nothing of which the Norsemen were
more afraid than of the _teredo_, or shipworm, which gnaws the wood
of ships. It was observed in Greenland and Iceland that pieces of wood
often floated on shore which were filled with holes made by this animal,
and they thought that in certain places the seas were full of this worm,
so that a ship would be bored and sunk in a little while. It is said that
on this return voyage Harald's vessel entered a worm-sea and presently
began to sink. They had, however, provided a smaller boat smeared with
sea-oil, which the worms would not attack. They went into the boat, but