would serve once to appease their hunger.  If they disobeyed, the guardian gods of the spot would not let them depart.  But the seamen, more anxious to go on filling their bellies than to obey orders, postponed counsels of safety to the temptations of gluttony, and loaded the now emptied holds of their ships with the carcases of slaughtered cattle.  These beasts were very easy to capture, because they gathered in amazement at the unwonted sight of men, their fears being made bold.  On the following night monsters dashed down upon the shore, filled the forest with clamour, and beleaguered and beset the ships.  One of them, huger than the rest, strode over the waters, armed with a mighty club.  Coming close up to them, he bellowed out that they should never sail away till they had atoned for the crime they had committed in slaughtering the flock, and had made good the losses of the herd of the gods by giving up one man for each of their ships.  Thorkill yielded to these threats; and, in order to preserve the safety of all by imperilling a few, singled out three men by lot and gave them up.

This done, a favouring wind took them, and they sailed to further Permland.  It is a region of eternal cold, covered with very deep snows, and not sensible to the force even of the summer heats; full of pathless forests, not fertile in grain and haunted by beasts uncommon elsewhere.  Its many rivers pour onwards in a hissing, foaming flood, because of the reefs imbedded in their channels.

Here Thorkill drew up his ships ashore, and bade them pitch their tents on the beach, declaring that they had come to a spot whence the passage to Geirrod would be short.  Moreover, he forbade them to exchange any speech with those that came up to them, declaring that nothing enabled the monsters to injure strangers so much as uncivil words on their part:  it would be therefore safer for his companions to keep silence; none but he, who had seen all the manners and customs of this nation before, could speak safely.  As twilight approached, a man of extraordinary bigness greeted the sailors by their names, and came among them.  All were aghast, but Thorkill told them to greet his arrival cheerfully, telling them that this was Gudmund, the brother of Geirrod, and the most faithful guardian in perils of all men who landed in that spot.  When the man asked why all the rest thus kept silence, he answered that they were very unskilled in his language, and were ashamed to use a speech they did not know.  Then Gudmund invited them to be his guests, and took them up in carriages.  As they went forward, they saw a river which could be crossed by a bridge of gold.  They wished to go over it, but Gudmund restrained them, telling them that by this channel nature had divided the world of men from the world of monsters, and that no mortal track might go further.  Then they reached the dwelling of their guide; and here Thorkill took his companions apart and warned them to behave like men