s were brave enough
to go to Valhalla. Sometimes during the fight a man would think that he
saw the Valkyrias. Then he was glad; for he knew that he would go to
Valhalla.

An old Norse story says this about the Valkyrias: "With lightning around
them, with bloody shirts of mail, and with shining spears they ride
through the air and the ocean. When their horses shake their manes, dew
falls on the deep valleys and hail on the high forests."

_Odin's Ravens._ Odin had a great throne in his palace in Asgard. When
he sat in it he could look all over the world. But it was so far to see
that he could not tell all of the things that were happening. So he had
two ravens to help him. An old Norse story tells this about them: "Two
ravens sit on Odin's shoulders and whisper in his ears all that they
have heard and seen. He sends them out at dawn of day to see over the
whole world. They return at evening near meal time. This is why Odin
knows so many things."

_Reykjavik._ Reykjavik means "smoky sea." Ingolf called it that because
of the steaming hot-springs by the sea. The place is still called
Reykjavik. A little city has grown up there, the only city in Iceland.
It is the capital of the country.

_Peace-bands._ A Norseman always carried his sword, even at a feast; for
he did not know when he might need it. But when he went somewhere on an
errand of peace and had no quarrel he tied his sword into its scabbard
with white bands that he called peace-bands. If all at once something
happened to make him need his sword, he broke the peace-bands and drew
it out.

_Eskimos._ Now, the Eskimos live in Greenland and Alaska and on the very
northern shores of Canada. But once they lived farther south in
pleasanter lands. After a while the other Indian tribes began to grow
strong. Then they wanted the pleasant land of the Eskimos and the
seashore that the Eskimos had. So they fought again and again with those
people and won and drove them farther north and farther north. At last
the Eskimos were on the very shores of the cold sea, with the Indians
still pushing them on. So some of them got into their boats and rowed
across the narrow water and came to Greenland and lived there. Some
people think that these things happened before Eric found Greenland. In
that case he found Eskimos there; and Thorfinn saw red Indians in
Wineland. Other people think that this happened after Eric went to
Greenland. If that is true, he found an empty land, and