‘"My father told me,” said Witta, “that a great Shoal runs three days’ sail out from that land, and south of the shoal lies a Forest which grows in the sea.  South and east of the Forest my father came to a place where the men hid gold in their hair; but all that country, he said, was full of Devils who lived in trees, and tore folk limb from limb.  How think ye?”

’"Gold or no gold,” said Hugh, fingering his sword, “it is a joyous venture.  Have at these Devils of thine, Witta!”

’"Venture!” said Witta sourly.  “I am only a poor sea-thief.  I do not set my life adrift on a plank for joy, or the venture.  Once I beach ship again at Stavanger, and feel the wife’s arms round my neck, I’ll seek no more ventures.  A ship is heavier care than a wife or cattle.”

’He leaped down among the rowers, chiding them for their little strength and their great stomachs.  Yet Witta was a wolf in fight, and a very fox in cunning.

’We were driven South by a storm, and for three days and three nights he took the stern-oar, and threddled the longship through the sea.  When it rose beyond measure he brake a pot of whale’s oil upon the water, which wonderfully smoothed it, and in that anointed patch he turned her head to the wind and threw out oars at the end of a rope, to make, he said, an anchor at which we lay rolling sorely, but dry.  This craft his father Guthrum had shown him.  He knew, too, all the Leech-Book of Bald, who was a wise doctor, and he knew the Ship-Book of Hlaf the Woman, who robbed Egypt.  He knew all the care of a ship.

’After the storm we saw a mountain whose top was covered with snow and pierced the clouds.  The grasses under this mountain, boiled and eaten, are a good cure for soreness of the gums and swelled ankles.  We lay there eight days, till men in skins threw stones at us.  When the heat increased Witta spread a cloth on bent sticks above the rowers, for the wind failed between the Island of the Mountain and the shore of Africa, which is east of it.  That shore is sandy, and we rowed along it within three bowshots.  Here we saw whales, and fish in the shape of shields, but longer than our ship.  Some slept, some opened their mouths at us, and some danced on the hot waters.  The water was hot to the hand, and the sky was hidden by hot, grey mists, out of which blew a fine dust that whitened our hair and beards of a morning.  Here, too, were fish that flew in the air like birds.  They would fall on the laps of the rowers, and when we went ashore we would roast and eat them.’

The knight paused to see if the children doubted him, but they only nodded and said, ‘Go on.’