“What more, then?”

“This, that I go down Golden Falls to-morrow, and I do not know how I may come from Sheep-saddle rock to Wolf’s Fang crag and keep my life whole in me; and now, I pray thee, weary me not with words, for my brain is slow, and I must use it.”

When she heard this Saevuna screamed aloud, and threw herself before Eric, praying him to forgo his mad venture.  But he would not listen to her, for he was slow to make up his mind, but, that being made up, nothing could change it.  Then, when she learned that it was to get sight of Gudruda that he purposed thus to throw his life away, she was very angry and cursed her and all her kith and kin.

“It is likely enough that thou wilt have cause to use such words before all this tale is told,” said Eric; “nevertheless, mother, forbear to curse Gudruda, who is in no way to blame for these matters.”

“Thou art a faithless son,” Saevuna said, “who wilt slay thyself striving to win speech with thy May, and leave thy mother childless.”

Eric said that it seemed so indeed, but he was plighted to it and the feat must be tried.  Then he kissed her, and she sought her bed, weeping.

Now it was the day of the Yule-feast, and there was no sun till one hour before noon.  But Eric, having kissed his mother and bidden her farewell, called a thrall, Jon by name, and giving him a sealskin bag full of his best apparel, bade him ride to Middalhof and tell Asmund the Priest that Eric Brighteyes would come down Golden Falls an hour after mid-day, to join his feast; and thence go to the foot of the Golden Falls, to await him there.  And the man went, wondering, for he thought his master mad.

Then Eric took a good rope, and a staff tipped with iron, and, so soon as the light served, mounted his horse, forded Ran River, and rode along Coldback till he came to the lip of Golden Falls.  Here he stayed a while till at length he saw many people streaming up the snow from Middalhof far beneath, and, among them, two women who by their stature should be Gudruda and Swanhild, and, near to them, a great man whom he did not know.  Then he showed himself for a space on the brink of the gulf and turned his horse up stream.  The sun shone bright upon the edge of the sky, but the frost bit like a sword.  Still, he must strip off his garments, so that nothing remained on him except his sheepskin shoes, shirt and hose, and take the water.  Now here the river runs mightily, and he must cross full thirty fathoms of the swirling water before he can reach Sheep-saddle, and woe to him if his foot slip on the boulders, for certainly he must be swept over the brink.

Eric rested the staff against the stony bottom and, leaning his weight on it, took the stream, and he was so strong that it could not prevail against him till at length he was rather more than half-way across and the water swept above his shoulders.  Now he was lifted from his feet and, letting the staff float, he swam for his life, and with such mighty strokes that he felt little of that icy cold.  Down he was swept—­now the lip of the fall was but three fathoms away on his left, and already the green water boiled beneath him.  A fathom from him was the corner of Sheep-saddle.  If he may grasp it, all is well; if not, he dies.