folk by their bearing betrayed their birth and revealed their race. But
when Koll, who was the keeper of the gifts offered to the king, asked
him whether he had brought any presents with him, he produced the ice
which he had hidden in his breast. And when he had handed it to Koll
across the hearth, he purposely let it go into the fire, as though it
had slipped from the hand of the receiver. All present saw the shining
fragment, and it seemed as though molten metal had fallen into the fire.
Erik, maintaining that it had been jerked away by the carelessness of
him who took it, asked what punishment was due to the loser of the gift.

The king consulted the opinion of the queen, who advised him not to
relax the statute of the law which he had passed, whereby he gave
warning that all who lost presents that were transmitted to him should
be punished with death. Everyone else also said that the penalty by law
appointed ought not to be remitted. And so the king, being counselled to
allow the punishment as inevitable, gave leave for Koll to be hanged.

Then Frode began to accost Erik thus: "O thou, wantoning in insolent
phrase, in boastful and bedizened speech, whence dost thou say that thou
hast come hither, and why?"

Erik answered: "I came from Rennes Isle, and I took my seat by a stone."

Frode rejoined: "I ask, whither thou wentest next?"

Erik answered. "I went off from the stone riding on a beam, and often
again took station by a stone."

Frode replied: "I ask thee whither thou next didst bend thy course, or
where the evening found thee?"

Then said Erik: "Leaving a crag, I came to a rock, and likewise lay by a
stone."

Frode said: "The boulders lay thick in those parts."

Erik answered: "Yet thicker lies the sand, plain to see."

Frode said: "Tell what thy business was, and whither thou struckest off
thence."

Then said Erik: "Leaving the rock, as my ship ran on, I found a
dolphin."

Frode said: "Now thou hast said something fresh, though both these
things are common in the sea: but I would know what path took thee after
that?"

Erik answered: "After a dolphin I went to a dolphin."

Frode said: "The herd of dolphins is somewhat common."

Then said Erik: "It does swim somewhat commonly on the waters."

Frode said: "I would fain blow whither thou wert borne on thy toilsome
journey after leaving the dolphins?"

Erik answered: "I soon came upon the trunk of a tree."

Frode rejoined: "Whither didst thou