d fastened it round her throat.

"Stay," I said, awaking. "I think you had best not touch those gems.
Iduna, I have dreamed that they will bring no luck to you or to any
woman, save one."

Here the dark-faced Freydisa looked up at me, then dropped her eyes
again, and stood listening.

"You have dreamed!" exclaimed Iduna. "I care little what you have
dreamed. It is for the necklace I care, and not all the ill-luck in the
world shall stay me from the keeping of it."

Here again Freydisa looked up, but Steinar looked down.

"Did you find aught else?" asked Ragnar, interrupting.

"Aye, brother, this!" and from under my cloak I produced the Wanderer's
sword.

"A wondrous weapon," said Ragnar when he had examined it, "though
somewhat heavy for its length, and of bronze, after the fashion of those
that are buried in the grave mounds. It has seen much wear also, and,
I should say, has loosed many a spirit. Look at the gold work of the
handle. Truly a wondrous weapon, worth all the necklaces in the world.
But tell us your story."

So I told them, and when I came to the images that we had found standing
on the coffin, Iduna, who was paying little heed, stopped from her
fondling of the necklace and asked where they were.

"Freydisa has them," I answered. "Show them the Wanderer's gods,
Freydisa."

"So Freydisa was with you, was she?" said Iduna.

Then she glanced at the gods, laughed a little at their fashion and
raiment, and again fell to fingering the necklace, which was more to her
than any gods.

Afterwards Freydisa asked me what was the dream of which I had spoken,
and I told it to her, every word.

"It is a strange story," said Freydisa. "What do you make of it, Olaf?"

"Nothing save that it was a dream. And yet those three broken wires
that are twisted round the chain, which I had never noted till I saw the
necklace in Iduna's hand! They fit well with my dream."

"Aye, Olaf, and the dream fits well with other things. Have you ever
heard, Olaf, that there are those who say that men live more than once
upon this earth?"

"No," I answered, laughing. "Yet why should they not do so, as they live
at all? If so, perhaps I am that Wanderer, in whose body I seemed to be,
only then I am sure that the lady with the golden shells was not Iduna."
And again I laughed.

"No, Olaf, she was not Iduna, though perchance there was an Iduna, all
the same. Tell me, did you see aught of that priestess who was with the
lady?