第79章

In order to examine this rumour, Roller, who was a great traveller abroad, and eager to visit unknown parts, made a vow that he would get into the company of Frode.But Erik declared that, splendid as were his bodily parts, he had been rash in pronouncing the vow.At last, seeing him persisting stubbornly in his purpose, Erik bound himself under a similar vow; and the king promised them that he would give them for companions whomsoever they approved by their choice.The brethren, therefore, first resolved to visit their father and beg for the stores and the necessaries that were wanted for so long a journey.He welcomed them paternally, and on the morrow took them to the forest to inspect the herd, for the old man was wealthy in cattle.Also he revealed to them treasures which had long lain hid in caverns of the earth; and they were suffered to gather up whatsoever of these they would.The boon was accepted as heartily as it was offered: so they took the riches out of the ground, and bore away what pleased them.

Their rowers meanwhile were either refreshing themselves or exercising their skill with casting weights.Some sped leaping, some running; others tried their strength by sturdily hurling stones; others tested their archery by drawing the bow.Thus they essayed to strengthen themselves with divers exercises.

Some again tried to drink themselves into a drowse.Roller was sent by his father to find out what had passed at home in the meanwhile.And when he saw smoke coming from his mother's hut he went up outside, and, stealthily applying his eye, saw through the little chink and into the house, where he perceived his mother stirring a cooked mess in an ugly-looking pot.Also he looked up at three snakes hanging from above by a thin cord, from whose mouths flowed a slaver which dribbled drops of moisture on the meal.Now two of these were pitchy of hue, while the third seemed to have whitish scales, and was hung somewhat higher than the others.This last had a fastening on its tail, while the others were held by a cord round their bellies.Roller thought the affair looked like magic, but was silent on what he had seen, that he might not be thought to charge his mother with sorcery.

For he did not know that the snakes were naturally harmless, or how much strength was being brewed for that meal.Then Ragnar and Erik came up, and, when they saw the smoke issuing from the cottage, entered and went to sit at meat.When they were at table, and Kraka's son and stepson were about to eat together, she put before them a small dish containing a piebald mess, part looking pitchy, but spotted with specks of yellow, while part was whitish: the pottage having taken a different hue answering to the different appearance of the snakes.And when each had tasted a single morsel, Erik, judging the feast not by the colours but by the inward strengthening effected, turned the dish around very quickly, and transferred to himself the part which was black but compounded of stronger juices; and, putting over to Roller the whitish part which had first been set before himself, throve more on his supper.And, to avoid showing that the exchange was made on purpose, he said, "Thus does prow become stern when the sea boils up." The man had no little shrewdness, thus to use the ways of a ship to dissemble his cunning act.

So Erik, now refreshed by this lucky meal, attained by its inward working to the highest pitch of human wisdom.For the potency of the meal bred in him the fulness of all kinds of knowledge to an incredible degree, so that he had cunning to interpret even the utterances of wild beasts and cattle.For he was not only well versed in all the affairs of men, but he could interpret the particular feelings which brutes experienced from the sounds which expressed them.He was also gifted with an eloquence so courteous and graceful, that he adorned whatsoever he desired to expound with a flow of witty adages.But when Kraka came up, and found that the dish had been turned round, and that Erik had eaten the stronger share of the meal, she lamented that the good luck she had bred for her son should have passed to her stepson.

Soon she began to sigh, and entreat Eric that he should never fail to help his brother, whose mother had heaped on him fortune so rich and strange: for by tasting a single savoury meal he had clearly attained sovereign wit and eloquence, besides the promise of success in combat.She added also, that Roller was almost as capable of good counsel, and that he should not utterly miss the dainty that had been intended for him.She also told him that in case of extreme and violent need, he could find speedy help by calling on her name; declaring that she trusted partially in her divine attributes, and that, consorting as she did in a manner with the gods, she wielded an innate and heavenly power.Erik said that he was naturally drawn to stand by his brother, and that the bird was infamous which fouled its own nest.But Kraka was more vexed by her own carelessness than weighed down by her son's ill-fortune: for in old time it made a craftsman bitterly ashamed to be outwitted by his own cleverness.