the farmer:

"'You would not eat with us. You cannot say no to half of my ale. I
drink this to your health.'

"Then I drank half of the hornful and sent the rest across the fire to
the farmer. He took it and smiled, saying:

"'Since it is to my health, I will drink it. I thought that all this
night's work would be my death.'

"'Oh, do not fear that!' I laughed, 'for a dead man sets no tables.'

"So we drank and all grew merrier. At last I stood up and said:

"'I like this little taste of your hospitality, friend farmer. I have
decided to accept more of it.'

"My men roared with laughter.

"'Come,' they cried, 'thank him for that, farmer. Did you ever have such
a lordly guest before?'

"I went on:

"'Now there is no fun in having guests unless they keep you company and
make you merry. So I will give out this law: that my men shall never
leave you alone. Hakon there shall be your constant companion, friend
farmer. He shall not leave you day or night, whether you are working or
playing or sleeping. Leif and Grim shall be the same kind of friends to
your two sons.'

"I named nine others and said:

"'And these shall follow your thralls in the same way. Now, am I not
careful to make your time go merrily?'

"So I set guards over every one in that house. Not once all that winter
did they stir out of sight of some of us. So no tales got out to the
neighbors. Besides, it was a lonely place, and by good luck no one came
that way. Oh! that was fat and easy living.

"Well, after we had been there for a long time, Hakon came in to the
feast one night and said:

"'I heard a cuckoo to-day!'

"'It is the call to go a-viking,' I said.

"All my men put their hands to their mouths and shouted. Their eyes
danced. Big Thorleif stood up and stretched himself.

"'I am stiff with long sitting,' he said. 'I itch for a fight.'

"I turned to the farmer.

"'This is our last feast with you,' I said.

"'Well,' he laughed, 'this has been the busiest winter I ever spent, and
the merriest. May good luck go with you!'

"'By the beard of Odin!' I cried; 'you have taken our joke like a man.'

"My men pounded the table with their fists.

"'By the hammer of Thor!' shouted Grim. 'Here is no stingy coward. He is
a man fit to carry my drinking-horn, the horn of a sea-rover and a
sword-swinger. Here, friend, take it,' and he thrust it into the
farmer's hand. 'May you drink heart's-ease from it for many years. And
with it I leave