Groping through gloom, he took a sword and went out the doorway. Nobody else was abroad. A wolf-howl sounded. The but stood hard against the stockade. He clambered up onto its roof and from there sprang over the uprights. His weight thudded softly on earth. Away he loped to the wood.

It was like his homeland with Hardgreip. Night or no, he knew how to go among trees, through brush, around brambles, over deadwood, across quagmires. Nonetheless he went warily, the sword naked in his hand.

That came which he awaited. Something huge lumbered out of the blackness ahead. Branches broke before it and cracked under its weight. He heard it growl, he breathed the rotten-meat breath of it.

No fear was in him as he braced for its onslaught. In the great dim hall Gangleri had chanted:

Leave them behind. Along your way

Soon a monster you meet.

With fang and claw it catches men,

But grip its gristly hide,

Boring your blade into its breast.

Then suck the steaming blood.

Eat of the flesh and all the heart

To straightway gain their strength.

Through your marrow will rush new might,

Enlivening every limb.

I will help you, hovering nigh,

To make those watchers weary.

If he had fulfilled that promise, he would surely keep the next. Hadding’s laughter rang aloud.

When he had slaughtered the troll and feasted as the old one bade, he felt as if reborn. Thenceforward he was as strong as any three other men.

XII

In a boat he stole on the coast, Hadding crossed over to Scania, no small deed of seamanship. From his landfall he went afoot to Bralund. There Lysir’s son, Eyjolf, made him welcome. ragged though he was, gave him clothes and other good things, and bade him stay as long as he wished. That was for the father’s sake and also because Eyjolf felt awed. He was stocky, sturdy, coppery haired, freckle faced, a year or two younger than Hadding, and had been left behind to look after things here. This was no common man whom he guested.

Hadding abode there through the winter. He lived quietly, lest word of him reach Svipdag. Bralund was not off in the backwoods like Yvangar. The chieftain’s garth was much bigger and finer than Braki’s, with more folk there and on the land round about. However, it lay far enough from Uppsala that news did not readily pass between. Furthermore, nobody here wanted to warn a king they loathed.