part I should not care to risk it.

They all looked at him in wonder. "But," said one of them, "everybody has seen Frey."

"I assure you," said Gunnar, "that I have not--for one. And I'll answer for every man in Norway."

"We know nothing of the Norwegians, of whom we hear for the first time," he was told; "but the people of this part have good reason to know Frey, and to fear him, seeing he lives among them, and is now a day's and night's journey from here. I myself," the speaker said, "saw him but fourteen days ago, in his holy place."

"What is his holy place?"

The man said, "It is his temple where he lives when he is not upon his rounds. All the winter he lives there with his wife, and the people worship him and make feasts for him. But when the winter is over, and the rains come to wash the world clean for the sun, Frey goes off in his wagon and visits all the villages in turn, and blesses the grain and makes it fertile. That is how the world goes on, and men get food for their pains."

Gunnar was amazed. "Do you say that Frey has a wife?"

"I do say so, since it is true. But as yet she is not fruitful, which vexes Frey."

"Let Frey consider himself," said Gunnar. "It is not always a wife's fault if she is not fruitful."

"You may be sure that the fault is not Frey's," they said.

"I am not at all so sure," said Gunnar. "Does Frey do his duty by her?"

They said, "For certain he does. He has been married to her these two years."

"There's time yet," said Gunnar; "these are early days. Is she a young woman?"

"She is in the flower of her age. She must be sixteen years old."

"And is she of this country?"

"It is not certainly known. A woman from the South had her. She said that her husband had been slain on the sea-coast; but no one here can say anything of it because no one has ever seen the sea. Well, when the girl was of marriageable age Frey chose her; so she was given him."

"And how did Frey choose her?"

"He took her."

Gunnar thought all this very remarkable, and said that he should himself go to see Frey. They answered to that, that undoubtedly he would; for if he did not they would be bound to take him, as an offering, since that was Frey's pleasure.

"Does Frey demand human sacrifice?" Gunnar asked. They said that he did.

Gunnar said, "He shall be baulked of me; but I have a very handsome cloak about me, which I shall give him as a present if he pleases to be benevolent to me."

"All depends upon his wife," they told him. "She has the power of choice in these matters." Gunnar said, "Leave me to deal with Frey's wife. I have a way with women."