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thy ships.

      Hervör.

      Ye can not light

      Such a flame at night

      That I would

      Fear your fires;

      The mind-town of thought²⁰⁴

      Of the maid does not quail

      Though she sees a ghost

      Standing in the door.

      Angantyr.

      I will tell thee, Hervör,

      Listen the while,

      Wise daughter,

      What will happen;

      This Tyrfing will,

      If thou canst believe it,

      All thy kin,

      Maiden, destroy.

      Thou shalt beget a son

      Who afterwards will

      Tyrfing carry

      And trust to his own strength;

      This one will the people

      Heidrek call,

      He will be the mightiest born

      Under the tent of the sun.

      Hervör.

      I thus spellbind

      The dead champions

      That you shall

      All lie

      Dead with the ghosts,

      Rotting in the mound,

      Unless thou yieldest me, Angantyr,

      The slayer of Hjalmar,²⁰⁵

      The one to armours dangerous,

      Out of the mound. …

      Angantyr.

      Young maiden, I say,

      Thou art not like man

      As thou art strolling about

      Among mounds in the night

      With inlaid spear

      And the Goth’s metal,

      With helmet and mail-coat

      Before the hall-door.

       Hervör.

      I thought hitherto I was

      A human being

      Ere I called

      At your halls;

      Hand me from the mound

      The hater of mail-coats,²⁰⁶

      It will not do for thee

      To hide the Dvergar’s smithying.

      Angantyr.

      The slayer of Hjalmar

      Lies under my shoulders;

      All around it is

      Wrapped in fire;

      No maiden I know

      Above the mould

      That dares this sword

      Take in her hand.

      Hervör.

      I will hold

      And take in my hands

      The sharp mœkir

      If I may have it;

      I do not fear

      The burning fire;

      At once the flame lessens

      When I look at it.

      Angantyr.

      Foolish art thou, Hervör,

      Though courage owning,

      As thou with open eyes

      Into the fire rushest;

      I will rather yield thee

      The sword from the mound,

      Young maiden!

      I cannot refuse it to thee.

      Then the sword was flung out into the hands of Hervör.

      Hervör.

      Thou didst well,

      Kinsman of vikings,

      When thou gavest me

      The sword from the mound;

      I think, king!

      I have a better gift

      Than if I got

      The whole of Norway.

      Angantyr.

      Thou knowest not,

      Thou art wretched in speech,

      Imprudent woman,

      At what thou art glad.

      This Tyrfing will,

      If thou canst believe it,²⁰⁷

      All thy kin,

      Maiden, destroy.

      Hervör.

      I will go down

      To the steeds of the sea;²⁰⁸

      Now is the king’s daughter

      In a good mind;

      I fear little,

      Kinsman of chiefs,

      How my sons

      May hereafter quarrel.

      Angantyr.

      Thou shalt own it

      And enjoy it long,

      But hidden keep

      The slayer of Hjalmar;

      Touch thou not its edges,

      Poison is in both,

      This doomer of men

      Is worse than disease.

      Farewell, daughter,

      I would quickly give thee

      The vigour of twelve men

      If thou would’st believe it;²⁰⁹

      The strength and endurance,

      All the good

      That the sons of Arngrim

      Left after themselves.

      “Then she went down to the sea, and when it dawned she saw that the ships had left. The vikings had been afraid of the thunderings and the fires in the island”²¹⁰ (Hervarar Saga, c. 10).

      Burial in ships.—The mode of burial in ships would appear to have belonged exclusively to the North, where it seems to have been in much favour, and shows in a remarkable manner the seafaring character of the people.

      Until recently few descriptions have been more ridiculed by persons who did not believe in the Saga literature, than those which gave accounts of burials of chiefs, warriors, and others in ships. Here again archæology has come to our aid to prove the truthfulness of the Sagas, and in such a perfect manner as to settle the question beyond controversy; for we find ships in which the body of the dead warrior was not burned, and other ships which have been used as a pyre. The earliest account of such burial is in Voluspa, amplified in the later Edda, which gives us a vivid description of the funeral of Baldr, the son of Odin.

      “The Asar took the

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