he might pay back King Athelstane, so the next year he got ship and
sent his young son Hakon to England, along with a great berserker,
or champion, named Hawk, and thirty warriors. They found the king
in London town, and, being fully armed, they entered his feasting
hall where he sat. Hawk took the child Hakon and placed him on King
Athelstane's knee, saying: 'The King of Norway biddeth thee foster
this his child.'

"Athelstane was exceeding wroth, and he caught up his sword that
lay beside him and drew it as if he would slay the lad. Then said
Hawk: 'Thou hast set the child on thy knee and mayest murder him
if thou wilt, but not thus withal wilt thou make an end of all the
sons of King Harald Fairhair.'

"Thus did the King of Norway pay back the King of England in his
own coin, for men ever account the fosterer less noble than him
whose child he fosters. Howbeit, King Athelstane kept the lad and
fostered him right well. Thereafter he treated young Hakon with
great kindness, taught him good manners and all kinds of prowess,
and in the end grew to love him more than any of his own kin. In
England, Hakon abandoned his faith in the gods of Scandinavia, and
became a worshipper of the White Christ, for in that land all men
are Christians, and Thor and Odin have no power.

"Now, while Hakon was away in England, his elder brother, Erik
Bloodaxe, went a-warring in his viking ships to many lands --
Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and Normandy, and north away in Finland.
And in Finland he found a certain woman, the like of whom he had
never seen for fairness in all his roamings. She was named Gunnhild,
and had learned all kinds of sorcery and witchcraft among the