“The bird is Wulfric’s,” said Lodbrok quietly.

“Nay, Jarl,” I answered, “I would not take so loving a hawk from her master, and over all our manors you may surely fly her.”

“See you there!” cried Beorn, with a sort of delight, not heeding my last words, “Wulfric will not have her!  Now will you sell?”

Then Lodbrok looked at me with a short glance that I could not but understand, and said that it would surely grieve him if I would not take the falcon.

Pleased enough I was, though half unwilling to take what seemed as a forced gift.  Yet to quiet Beorn—­whom I never liked, as he was both overbearing and boastful, though of great skill in his art of falconry—­I thanked the Dane, and went to where a hawking glove hung on the wall, for my arm would feel the marks of those strong talons for many a day, already.  As I put it on I said that I feared the bird would hardly come to me, leaving her master.

“Once I would have said that she would not,” said Lodbrok; “for until today she would bide with no man but myself and her keeper.  But today she has sat on your wrist, so that I know she will love you well, for reasons that are beyond my guessing.”

And so he shifted the falcon lightly from his wrist to mine, and there she sat quietly, looking from him to me as though she would own us both.

Then said Beorn, holding out his hand, on which he wore his embroidered state glove of office: 

“This is foolishness.  The bird will perch on any wrist that is rightly held out to her, so she be properly called,” and he whistled shrill, trying to edge the falcon from my hand.

In a moment she roused herself, and her great wings flew out, striking his arm and face as he pushed them forward; and had he not drawn back swiftly, her iron beak would surely have rent his gay green coat.

“Plague on the kite!” he said; “surely she is bewitched!  And if her master is, as they say, a wizard, that is likely—­”

“Enough, Master Falconer,” I said, growing angry.  “Lodbrok is our guest, and this, moreover, is the court for the time.  Why, the bird is drowsy, and has been with me already.  There is no wonder in the matter, surely?”

But Beorn scowled, and one might see that his pride of falconry was hurt.  Maybe he would have answered again, but I spoke to Lodbrok, asking him what the falcon was, as she was like none of ours, for this was a thing I knew Beorn would be glad to know, while his pride would not let him ask.

And Lodbrok answered that she was an Iceland gerfalcon from the far northern ocean, and went on to tell us of her powers of flight, and at what game she was best, and how she would take her quarry, and the like.  And Beorn sat down and feigned to pay no heed to us.

Presently the Dane said that he had known gerfalcons to fly from Iceland to Norway in a day, and at that Beorn laughed as in scorn.

“Who shouted from Norway to Iceland to say that a lost hawk had come over?” he said.