m Earl Angantyr. He entreats Ingeborg to flee with him; but she
refuses. She sees from Balder's Grove his good ship Ellida breasting the
waves and weeps bitter tears at his loss:

"Swell not so high,
Billows of blue with your deafening cry!
Stars, lend assistance, a shining
Pathway defining!

"With the spring doves
Frithjof will come, but the maiden he loves
Cannot in hall or dell meet him,
Lovingly greet him.
Buried she sleeps
Dead for love's sake, or bleeding she weeps
Heart-broken, given by her brother
Unto another."

It is perfectly in keeping with the character of Norse womanhood in the
saga age that Ingeborg should refuse to defy her brother's authority by
fleeing with Frithjof and yet deeply mourn his departure without her.
The family feeling, the bond of blood, was exceptionally strong; and
submission to the social code which made the male head of the house the
arbiter of his sister's fate was bred in the bone. It is, therefore,
perfectly natural that, when King Ring has beaten her brothers in
battle, and exacted Ingeborg as the prize of victory, she yields
unmurmuringly to their decree.

Frithjof, in the meanwhile, distinguishes himself greatly in the Orkneys
by his strength and prowess, gains Earl Angantyr's friendship, and
returns with the tribute. As he sails into the fjord, a sight greets him
which makes his heart quail. Framnaes, his paternal estate, is burnt to
the ground, and the charred beams lie in a ruined heap under the smiling
sky. The kings, though they had pledged their honor that they would not
harm his property, had broken faith with him; and Ingeborg, in the hope
of gaining whom he had undertaken the perilous voyage, was wedded to
King Ring. In a white-heat of wrath and sorrow Frithjof starts out to
call her perjured brothers to account. He finds them in the temple in
Balder's Grove, preparing for the sacrifice. There he flings the bag
containing the tribute into King Helge's face, knocking out his front
teeth, and observing on his wife's arm the ring with which he had once
pledged Ingeborg, he rushes at her to recover it. The woman, who had
been warming the wooden image of Balder before the fire, drops, in her
fright, the idol into the flame. Frithjof seizes her by the arm and
snatches the ring from her. In the general confusion that follows the
temple takes fire, and all attempts to quench the flames are futile. In
consequen