-

(82)
"When my manhood was matched in embraces
With the might of yon horror, the strangler,
Far other I found it than folding
That fair one ye know in my arms!
On the high-seat of heroes with Odin
From the horn of the gods I were drinking
O'er soon--let me speak it to warriors--
If Skrymir had failed of his aid."

Then his wounds were looked to; they found that his ribs were broken on
both sides. He said it was no use trying to heal him, and lay there in
his wounds for a time, while his men grieved that he should have been so
unwary of his life.

He answered them in song:--

(83)
"Of yore never once did I ween it,
When I wielded the cleaver of targets,
That sickness was fated to foil me--
A fighter so hardy as I.
But I shrink not, for others must share it,
Stout shafts of the spear though they deem them,
--O hard at my heart is the death-pang,--
Thus hopeless the bravest may die."

And this song also:--

(84)
"He came not with me in the morning,
Thy mate, O thou fairest of women,
When we reddened for booty the broadsword,
So brave to the hand-grip, in Ireland:
When the sword from its scabbard was loosened
And sang round my cheeks in the battle
For the feast of the Fury, and blood-drops
Fell hot on the neb of the raven."

And then he began to fail.

This was his last song:--

(85)
"There was dew from the wound smitten deeply
That drained from the stroke of the sword-edge;
There was red on the weapon I wielded
In the war with the glorious and gallant:
Yet not where the broadsword,--the blood wand,--
Was borne by the lords of the falchion,
But low in the straw like a laggard,
O my lady, dishonoured I die!"

He said that his will was to give Thorgils his brother all he had,--the
goods he owned and the host he led; for he would like best, he said,
that his brother should have the use of them.

So then Cormac died. Thorgils became captain over the host, and was long
time in viking.

And so ends the story.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald, by Unknown

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE AND DEATH OF CORMAC ***

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