第183章

This is the reason why I feel The slash and thrust of Danish steel;And pale and faint, and bent with pain, Return from yonder battle-plain."Then Thormod stood up and went in towards the fire, and stood there awhile.The young woman said to him, "Go out, man, and bring in some of the split firewood which lies close beside the door." He went out and brought in an armful of wood, which he threw down upon the floor.Then the nurse-girl looked him in the face, and said, "Dreadfully pale is this man -- why art thou so?"Then Thormod sang: --"Thou wonderest, sweet sprig, at me, A man so hideous to see:

Deep wounds but rarely mend the face, The crippling blow gives little grace.

The arrow-drift o'ertook me, girl, --

A fine-ground arrow in the whirl Went through me, and I feel the dart Sits, lovely girl, too near my heart."The girl said, "Let me see thy wound, and I will bind it."Thereupon Thormod sat down, cast off his clothes, and the girl saw his wounds, and examined that which was in his side, and felt that a piece of iron was in it, but could not find where the iron had gone in.In a stone pot she had stirred together leeks and other herbs, and boiled them, and gave the wounded men of it to eat, by which she discovered if the wounds had penetrated into the belly; for if the wound had gone so deep, it would smell of leek.She brought some of this now to Thormod, and told him to eat of it.He replied, "Take it away, I have no appetite for my broth." Then she took a large pair of tongs, and tried to pull out the iron; but it sat too fast, and would in no way come, and as the wound was swelled, little of it stood out to lay hold of.

Now said Thormod, "Cut so deep in that thou canst get at the iron with the tongs, and give me the tongs and let me pull." She did as he said.Then Thormod took a gold ring from his hand, gave it to the nurse-woman, and told her to do with it what she liked.

"It is a good man's gift," said he: "King Olaf gave me the ring this morning." Then Thormod took the tongs, and pulled the iron out; but on the iron there was a hook, at which there hung some morsels of flesh from the heart, -- some white, some red.When he saw that, he said, "The king has fed us well.I am fat, even at the heart-roots;" and so saying he leant back, and was dead.

And with this ends what we have to say about Thormod.

248.OF SOME CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE BATTLE.

King Olaf fell on Wednesday, the 29th of July (A.D.1030).It was near mid-day when the two armies met, and the battle began before half-past one, and before three the king fell.The darkness continued from about half-past one to three also.

Sigvat the skald speaks thus of the result of the battle: --"The loss was great to England's foes, When their chief fell beneath the blows By his own thoughtless people given, --When the king's shield in two was riven.

The people's sovereign took the field, The people clove the sovereign's shield.

Of all the chiefs that bloody day, Dag only came out of the fray."And he composed these: --"Such mighty bonde-power, I ween, With chiefs or rulers ne'er was seen.

It was the people's mighty power That struck the king that fatal hour.

When such a king, in such a strife, By his own people lost his life, Full many a gallant man must feel The death-wound from the people's steel."The bondes did not spoil the slain upon the field of battle, for immediately after the battle there came upon many of them who had been against the king a kind of dread as it were; yet they held by their evil inclination, for they resolved among themselves that all who had fallen with the king should not receive the interment which belongs to good men, but reckoned them all robbers and outlaws.But the men who had power, and had relations on the field, cared little for this, but removed their remains to the churches, and took care of their burial.

249.A MIRACLE ON A BLIND MAN.

Thorgils Halmason and his son Grim went to the field of battle towards evening when it was dusk, took King Olaf's corpse up, and bore it to a little empty houseman's hut which stood on the other side of their farm.They had light and water with them.Then they took the clothes off the body, swathed it in a linen cloth, laid it down in the house, and concealed it under some firewood so that nobody could see it, even if people came into the hut.