Saga of Halfred the Sigskald: A Northern Tale of the Tenth Century

And now the midsummer feast was magnificently celebrated in the hall. And there were full a thousand guests within the hall; but many hundreds of the servants and bondmen were c...

He threw off his tattered clothing, and clad himself in the most costly royal raiment of scarlet and rich gold, which lay stored away as a special treasure among the spoils of t...

"Both men and stores need caring for: we will land at King Thorul's sea castle, and provide all that we need on board. Far famed is King Thorul's hall; there they have great ski...

At first I thought I would drive the flock to the monastery, which lay some six stages distant, and relate all to the monks, and confess how I had, all unwittingly, slain my own...

And after many years he came sailing in his rotten boat over the seas which play around the island of Caledonia. He landed, seized his hammer, and strode upwards to a steep rock...

I, Aaron of Perusia, called by the grace of God to feed these lambs of the holy Columban, had also the grace given to me to drive the diseased sheep from the flock.

And he carried his head again proudly erect, when he did not purposely bend down to look into the golden eyes of the boy, which ever again and again he did.

Silently Halfred signed to his sailing comrades to carry out all the bodies from the drinking hall, the dwelling-house, and the ships; and to collect them altogether on the shor...

And forthwith it became known that Halfred had armed the best of his house churls, and his followers, with good weapons, to set forth as a Viking to conquer, and as a Skald to s...

And thus had Halfred now, for many years, roamed about as a Viking and as a Skald, and had won fame and red gold; and once more he again celebrated the Yule feast at home in his...

And when the depth of winter was passed, and the spring was come, Halfred sent a message to Upsala, to King Hartstein, that at the midsummer tide Dame Harthild should bear a child.

But Halfred kneeled day and night beside her couch. He held her languid hand; he listened to her faint breathing; he kissed from her lips the small drops of blood which often ga...

He called the six seamen, who had held themselves shyly aloof in the stern and lower deck, and spoke, but his voice, he himself told me, sounded strange to him like that of anot...

Then he perceived that he could only see with difficulty what was on his left side. He felt for his left eye, and found a bleeding cavity. A splinter of the mast had struck it o...

And so soon as the Austr-Vogen was free from ice, the Singing Swan sailed towards Svearike, and through numberless perils into the great sea which lies to the south and east of...

Hartvik and Eigil commanded the Singing Swan, and ruled their sailing comrades. They chose the design, the port, and the course of their voyages. Halfred without word, wish, or...

Nigh upon fifty winters ago, there was growing up in the North a boy named Halfred. In Iceland, on the Hamund Fjord, stood the splendid hall of his father, Hamund.

On the day after the wedding, however, Halfred rode alone into the pine wood. He said he wished to think, and he refused Harthild, who would have ridden with him, and also his b...

And he would willingly have taken Harthild away as his wife, but she had said to him, "If thou failest to solve my riddle, thy shorn locks will cause thee affliction; and if tho...