As he sat in his banquet-hall,
Drinking the nut-brown ale,
With his bearded Berserks hale
And tall.

Three days his Yule-tide feasts
He held with bishops and priests,

And his horn filled up to the brim ;
But the ale was never too strong,
Nor the Saga-man's tale too long,
For him.

O'er his drinking-horn, the sign
He made of the Cross divine,

As he drank and muttered his prayers;

But the Berserks evermore

Made the sign of the Hammer of Thor
Over theirs.

The gleams of the firelight dance
Upon helmet and hauberk and lance,

And laugh in the eyes of the king;
And he cries to Halfred the Skjald,
Gray-bearded, wrinkled, and bald,
"Sing!

"Sing me a song divine,
With a sword in every line,

And this shall be thy reward."
And he loosened the belt at his waist,
And in front of the singer placed
His sword.

"Queen-biter of Hakon the Good, Wherewith at a stroke he hewed

The millstone through and through, And foot-breadth of Thorolf the Strong Were neither so broad nor so long,

Nor so true."

Then the skjald took the harp and sang,
And loud through the music rang

The sound of that shining word; And the harp-strings a clangor made, As if they were struck with the blade Of a sword.

And the Berserks round about
Broke forth into a shout

That made the rafters ring:

They smote with their fists on the board, And shouted, "Long live the Sword, And the King!"

But the king said, "Oh, my son,

I miss the bright word in one

Of thy measures and thy rhymes."

And Halfred the Skjald replied, "In another it was multiplied Three times."

Then King Olaf raised the hilt
Of iron, cross-shaped and gilt,
And said, "Do not refuse;
Count well the gain and the loss;
Thor's Hammer or Christ's Cross:
Choose!"

And Halfred the Skjald said, "This,
In the name of the Lord I kiss,
Who on it was crucified!"

And a shout went round the board,
"In the name of Christ the Lord,
Who died!"

Then over the waste of snows

The noonday sun uprose,

Through the driving mists revealed

Like the lifting of the Host,

By incense-clouds almost
Concealed.

On the shining wall a vast
And shadowy Cross was cast

From the hilt of the lifted sword.
And in foaming cups of ale

The Berserks drank "Was-hael!"
To the Lord.

-The Saga of King Olaf, Rune XII.

KING OLAF AND EARL ERIC.

Drifting down on the Danish fleet

Three together the ships were lashed,
So that neither should turn and retreat;
In the midst, but in front of the rest
The burnished crest

Of the Serpent flashed.

King Olaf stood on the quarter-deck,

With bow of ash and arrows of oak;
His gilded shield was without a fleck,
His helmet inlaid with gold;
And in many a fold
Hung his crimson cloak.

In front came Svend, the King of the Danes,
Sweeping down with his fifty rowers;

To the right, the Swedish king with his thanes ;
And on board of the Iron-Beard

Earl Eric steered

To the left with his oars.

Then as together the vessels crashed,
Eric severed the cables of hide
With which King Olaf's ships were lashed,
And left them to drive and drift
With the currents swift

Of the outward tide.

Louder the war-horns growl and snarl,

Sharper the dragons bite and sting;

Eric the son of Hakon Jarl

A death-drink salt as the sea

Pledges to thee,

Olaf, the King!

-The Saga of King Olaf, Rune XIX.