Again Odin and Frea, with their children, and the heroes sung by the scalds, in the war songs which he heard echoing from around the fire at that moment: 

“How this one was brave,
And bartered his life
For joy in the fight;
How that one was wise,
Was true to his friends
And the dread of his foes.”

Valour, wisdom, fidelity, contempt of death, hatred of meanness and cowardice, qualities ever shining in the eyes of warlike youth.

This creed had sufficed for his ancestors for generations, as his father had told him.  Why should he be better than they?  If they trusted to the faith of Odin, might not he?

And then, if he lived, when the war was carried into Mercia, he would save his English friends, even although forced to live unknown to them.

“Oh! life is sweet,” thought he, “sweet to one so young as I. I have but tasted the cup; shall I throw it down not half empty?”

He was almost conquered.  He had all but turned to seek his father, when suddenly the remembrance of Bertric flashed vividly upon him.

He saw, as in a vision, the patient, brave lad enduring mortal agony for Christ, so patiently, so calmly.  Had Bertric, then, died for nought?  He felt as if the martyr were near him, to aid him in this moment, when his faith was in peril.

“O Bertric, Bertric!” he cried, “intercede for me, pray for me.”

He fell on his knees, and did not rise until the temptation was conquered, and then he walked steadily into the great vaulted room, of Roman construction, which served as the banqueting hall, and took his usual place by his father’s side.

Oh, how hollow the mirth and revelry that night!  How he loathed the singing, the drunken shouting, the fierce imprecation over the wine cup—­the sensuality, which now distinguished his bloodthirsty companions.  The very knives he saw used for their meals had served as daggers to despatch the wounded or the helpless prisoner.  The eyes, now weak with debauch, had glowed with the maniacal fury of the berserkir in the battlefield.  Was this the glory of manhood?  Nay, rather of wolves and bears.

Then he looked up at Sweyn, the murderer of his father, and marvelled that his hand was yet so steady—­his head so clear.  This apostate parricide! never would he live to kiss the hand of such a man; better die at once, while yet pure from innocent blood.  This his Christianity had taught him.

“Minstrel,” cried the fierce king, “sing us some stirring song of the days of old; plenty of the fire of the old Vikings in it.”

A strange minstrel, a young gleeman, had been admitted that night—­one whose chain and robes bespoke him of the privileged class—­and he sang in a voice which thrilled all the revellers into awed silence.  He sang of the battle, of the joy of conquest, and the glories of Valhalla, where deceased warriors drank mead from the skulls of vanquished foes.  And then he sang of the cold and snowy Niffelheim, where in regions of eternal frost the cowardly and guilty dead mourned their weak and wasted lives.  In words of terrific force he painted their agony, where Hela, of horrid countenance, reigned supreme; where the palace was Anguish, Famine the board, Delay and Vain Hope the waiters, Precipice the threshold, and Leanness the bed.