“Then that may well be, for the heart does not lie at such a time.  Also it is true that he was worth both of us.  There was something more in him than there is in us, Steinar.  Come, lift him to my back, and if you are strong enough, go on to the horses and bid the thrall bring one of them.  I follow.”

Thus ended the fight with the great white bear.

Some four hours later, in the midst of a raging storm of wind and rain, I was brought at last to the bridge that spanned the moat of the Hall of Aar, laid like a corpse across the back of one of the horses.  They had been searching for us at Aar, but in that darkness had found nothing.  Only, at the head of the bridge was Freydisa, a torch in her hand.  She glanced at me by the light of the torch.

“As my heart foretold, so it is,” she said.  “Bring him in,” then turned and ran to the house.

They bore me up between the double ranks of stabled kine to where the great fire of turf and wood burned at the head of the hall, and laid me on a table.

“Is he dead?” asked Thorvald, my father, who had come home that night; “and if so, how?”

“Aye, father,” answered Ragnar, “and nobly.  He dragged Steinar yonder from under the paws of the great white bear and slew it with his sword.”

“A mighty deed,” muttered my father.  “Well, at least he comes home in honour.”

But my mother, whose favourite son I was, lifted up her voice and wept.  Then they took the clothes from off me, and, while all watched, Freydisa, the skilled woman, examined my hurts.  She felt my head and looked into my eyes, and laying her ear upon my breast, listened for the beating of my heart.

Presently she rose, and, turning, said slowly: 

“Olaf is not dead, though near to death.  His pulses flutter, the light of life still burns in his eyes, and though the blood runs from his ears, I think the skull is not broken.”

When she heard these words, Thora, my mother, whose heart was weak, fainted for joy, and my father, untwisting a gold ring from his arm, threw it to Freydisa.

“First the cure,” she said, thrusting it away with her foot.  “Moreover, when I work for love I take no pay.”

Then they washed me, and, having dressed my hurts, laid me on a bed near the fire that warmth might come back to me.  But Freydisa would not suffer them to give me anything save a little hot milk which she poured down my throat.

For three days I lay like one dead; indeed, all save my mother held Freydisa wrong and thought that I was dead.  But on the fourth day I opened my eyes and took food, and after that fell into a natural sleep.  On the morning of the sixth day I sat up and spoke many wild and wandering words, so that they believed I should only live as a madman.

“His mind is gone,” said my mother, and wept.

“Nay,” answered Freydisa, “he does but return from a land where they speak another tongue.  Thorvald, bring hither the bear-skin.”