country that stretches towards Norwich, on the south of the
Yare. Maybe we were five miles from the old castle at Caistor.
There we beat the woods for roebuck, having greyhounds and hawks
with us, but no attendants, as it happened, and for a time we found
nothing, not being far from the road that leads to the great city
from the south.

Then we came to a thicket where the deer were likely to harbour,
and we went, one on either side of it, so that we could not see one
another, and little by little separated. Then I started a roe, and
after it went my hounds, and I with them, winding my horn to call
Lodbrok to me, for they went away from him.

My hounds took the roe, after a long chase, and I was at work upon
it, when that white hound that I had given to Lodbrok came leaping
towards me, and taking no heed of the other hounds, or of the dead
deer, fawned upon me, marking my green coat with bloodstains from
its paws.

I was angry, and rated the hound, and it fled away swiftly as it
came, only to return, whining and running to and fro as though to
draw me after it. Then I thought that Lodbrok had also slain a
deer, starting one from the same thicket, which was likely enough,
and that this dog, being but young, would have me come and see it.
All the while the hound kept going and coming, being very uneasy,
and I rated it again.

Then it came across me that I had not heard Lodbrok's horn, and
that surely the dog would not so soon have left his quarry. And at
that I hasted and hung the deer on a branch, and, mounting my
horse, rode after the hound, which at once ran straight before me,
going to where I thought Lodbrok would be.

When I came round the spur of wood that had first parted us I was
frightened, for Lodbrok's horse ran there loose, snorting as if in
terror of somewhat that I could not see, and I caught him and rode
on.

When I could see a furlong before me, into a little hollow of the
land that is there, before me was a man, dressed like myself in
green, and he was dragging the body of another man towards a
thicket; and as I saw this my horses started from a pool of blood
in which lay a broken arrow shaft.

At that I shouted and spurred swiftly towards those two--letting
the other horse go free--with I know not what wild thoughts in my
mind.

And when I came near I knew that the living man was Beorn, and that
the dead was Lodbrok my friend.

Then I took my horn and wound it loud and long, charging down u