ood meat; and after a while came in some
ragged boys carrying bunches of branches and some hauling great bundles
of logs with roots, and these they rolled into the fireplace piling the
branches above them. Then one of the women, bringing a sack of dry
leaves arranged them carefully among the branches and under the places
where the bark of the logs was rough. Then, with a flint and steel, an
old woman knelt and touched the dry leaves into a flame that was dull in
a moment. The branches caught, and crackling, sent ends of flaming twigs
wild up the chimney. Then at last the great logs at the back began to
smoke, and soon their bark caught fire, and their chopped ends played
with the eager flame, so all the hall was warmed and a thin smoke
sailing up about the rafters. Then came they with great hooks that were
made fast to turning cranes driven in the fireplace wall, and on these
hooks were sides of deer and legs of sheep, with pans below and ladles
that no richness might be lost, and thick brown cakes were piled along
the table-centre in a row; and now four men came rolling in two casks of
unbroached beer, and these they set below the table's edge down at the
end. The women lifted a great cauldron on to the fire, that glowed like
some sprites' cauldron of black-art; it held fowls and green things
floating in the midst, the gravy sizzling at the sides. Then the old
woman who had lit the fire went to the doorway and took down a great
sea-shell that hung there and she blew a hateful blast that broke the
very air, and all the men came trooping to their meat.

That morn was the holy morn of Easter, and Cefron came to share our
meat, his elbow sideways over Heinrick's shoulder. My wife came later,
and was blessed and sat. When Father Cefron had done his prayers, and
given his pious warnings to the men, the food went from the table in a
turn of the hand, for the morning was very cold and the men were hungry
and the ale warm from the fire, where the men placed it. It flowed down
thirsty throats like strong streams into caverns. When all had eaten and
turned their stools apart from the board and leant their backs thereon
or stretched their legs and arms in full content, I rose from my great
chair at the head of all the table of my house, and with no word to her
who was my wife, I pointed and I spoke to Heinrick quietly:

"You will meet me in holmgang, in the cleared snow, before the hall's
great door, when the sun is even overhead,