itten. Few men wrote or read in those days.
Skalds learned songs from hearing them sung. At last people began to
write more easily. Then they said:

"These stories are very precious. We must write them down to save them
from being forgotten."

After that many men in Iceland spent their winters in writing books.
They wrote on sheepskin; vellum, we call it. Many of these old vellum
books have been saved for hundreds of years, and are now in museums in
Norway. Some leaves are lost, some are torn, all are yellow and
crumpled. But they are precious. They tell us all that we know about
that olden time. There are the very words that the men of Iceland wrote
so long ago--stories of kings and of battles and of ship-sailing. Some
of those old stories I have told in this book.

_PART I_

[Illustration]

_IN_ NORWAY

[Decoration]

[Illustration]

The Baby

King Halfdan lived in Norway long ago. One morning his queen said to
him:

"I had a strange dream last night. I thought that I stood in the grass
before my bower.[1] I pulled a thorn from my dress. As I held it in my
fingers, it grew into a tall tree. The trunk was thick and red as blood,
but the lower limbs were fair and green, and the highest ones were
white. I thought that the branches of this great tree spread so far that
they covered all Norway and even more."

"A strange dream," said King Halfdan. "Dreams are the messengers of the
gods. I wonder what they would tell us," and he stroked his beard in
thought.

Some time after that a serving-woman came into the feast hall where King
Halfdan was. She carried a little white bundle in her arms.

"My lord," she said, "a little son is just born to you."

"Ha!" cried the king, and he jumped up from the high seat and hastened
forward until he stood before the woman.

"Show him to me!" he shouted, and there was joy in his voice.

The serving-woman put down her bundle on the ground and turned back the
cloth. There was a little naked baby. The king looked at it carefully.

"It is a goodly youngster," he said, and smiled. "Bring Ivar and
Thorstein."[2]

They were captains of the king's soldiers. Soon they came.

"Stand as witnesses," Halfdan said.

Then he lifted the baby in his arms, while the old serving-woman brought
a silver bowl of water. The king dipped his hand into it and sprinkled
the baby, saying:

"I own this baby for my son. He shall be called Harald. My naming gift
to him is ten