On the cairn are fixed her eyes

Where her murdered father lies,

And a voice remote and drear

She seems to hear.

What a bridal night is this!
Cold will be the dagger's kiss;
Laden with the chill of death

Is its breath.

Like the drifting snow she sweeps
To the couch where Olaf sleeps;

Suddenly he wakes and stirs,
His eyes meet hers.

"What is that," King Olaf said, "Gleams so bright above thy head?

Wherefore standest thou so white

In pale moonlight?”

"T is the bodkin that I wear

When at night I bind my hair;

It woke me falling on the floor; 'Tis nothing more."

"Forests have ears, and fields have eyes;

Often treachery lurking lies

Underneath the fairest hair!

Gudrun beware!"

Ere the earliest peep of morn
Blew King Olaf's bugle-horn;
And forever sundered ride

Bridegroom and bride!

5*

IX.

THANGBRAND THE PRIEST.

SHORT of stature, large of limb,
Burly face and russet beard,

All the women stared at him,
When in Iceland he appeared.

"Look!" they said,

With nodding head,

"There goes Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest."

All the prayers he knew by rote,

He could preach like Chrysostome,

From the Fathers he could quote,

He had even been at Rome.

A learned clerk,

A man of mark,

Was this Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.

He was quarrelsome and loud,

And impatient of control,

Boisterous in the market crowd,

Boisterous at the wassail-bowl,

Everywhere

Would drink and swear, Swaggering Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.

In his house this malecontent

Could the King no longer bear,

So to Iceland he was sent

To convert the heathen there,

And away

One summer day

Sailed this Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.

There in Iceland, o'er their books
Pored the people day and night,
But he did not like their looks,

Nor the songs they used to write.

"All this rhyme

Is waste of time! ""

Grumbled Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.

To the alehouse, where he sat,

Came the Scalds and Saga-men;

Is it to be wondered at,

That they quarrelled now and then,

When o'er his beer

Began to leer

Drunken Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest?

All the folk in Altafiord

Boasted of their island grand;

Saying in a single word,

"Iceland is the finest land

That the sun

Doth shine upon!"

Loud laughed Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.