ch eyes!"

He answered:--

(7)
"One eye of the far of the ale-horn
Looking out of a form so bewitching,
Would a bridegroom count money to buy it
He must bring for it ransom three hundred.
The curls that she combs of a morning,
White-clothed in fair linen and spotless,
They enhance the bright hoard of her value,--
Five hundred might barely redeem them!"

Said the maid, "It's give and take with the two of ye! But thou'lt put a
big price upon the whole of her!" He answered:--

(8)
"The tree of my treasure and longing,
It would take this whole Iceland to win her:
She is dearer than far-away Denmark,
And the doughty domain of the Hun-folk.
With the gold she is combing, I count her
More costly than England could ransom:
So witty, so wealthy, my lady
Is worth them,--and Ireland beside!"

Then Tosti came in, and called Cormac out to some work or other; but he
said:--

(9)
"Take my swift-footed steel for thy tiding,
Ay, and stint not the lash to him, Tosti:
On the desolate downs ye may wander
And drive him along till he weary.
I care not o'er mountain and moorland
The murrey-brown weathers to follow,--
Far liefer, I'd linger the morning
In long, cosy chatter with Steingerd."

Tosti said he would find it a merrier game, and went off; so Cormac sat
down to chess, and right gay he was. Steingerd said he talked better
than folk told of; and he sat there all the day; and then he made this
song:--

(10)
"'Tis the dart that adorneth her tresses,
The deep, dewy grass of her forehead.
So kind to my keeping she gave it,
That good comb I shall ever remember!
A stranger was I when I sought her
--Sweet stem with the dragon's hoard shining--"
With gold like the sea-dazzle gleaming--
The girl I shall never forget."

Tosti came off the fell and they fared home. After that Cormac used to
go to Gnupsdal often to see Steingerd: and he asked his mother to make
him good clothes, so that Steingerd might like him the most that could
be. Dalla said there was a mighty great difference betwixt them, and it
was far from certain to end happily if Thorkel at Tunga got to know.

CHAPTER FOUR. How Cormac Liked Black-Puddings.

Well Thorkel soon heard what was going forward, and thought it wou