Summary

Chapter 1 introduces the thane Toste’s family: Vikings who live in the Skania region of Sweden. Toste and his feisty, fussing wife Asa had three sons but one died while riding a bull, the second on a ship, and a third went missing after sleeping with the neighbors’ wives but is presumed dead. They have two remaining sons: Odd and Orm. Odd bickers with his mother but gets along with his father, with whom he sails each year. Orm is the “jewel of his mother’s eye”—a sulky, somewhat sickly youth. When Toste returns from a successful expedition to England, he is eager to retire and settle down once and for all. Asa urges him to keep on sailing, for they need the money. She insists on keeping Orm home another season, claiming to have nightmares foreseeing his death...