I was about to answer sharply, since Ragnar stung me with his bitter talk of Steinar, of whom I knew him to be somewhat jealous, because he thought I loved my foster-brother more than I did him, my brother.  Just then, however, three men appeared through trees that grew about the hall, and came towards the bridge, whereon Ragnar’s great wolfhounds, knowing them for strangers, set up a furious baying and sprang forward to tear them.  By the time the beasts were caught and quelled, these men, aged persons of presence, had crossed the bridge and were greeting us.

“This is the hall of Thorvald of Aar, is it not?  And a certain Steinar dwells here with him, does he not?” asked their spokesman.

“It is, and I am Thorvald,” answered my father.  “Also Steinar has dwelt here from his birth up, but is now away from home on a visit to the lord Athalbrand of Lesso.  Who are you, and what would you of Steinar, my fosterling”

“When you have told us the story of Steinar we will tell you who we are and what we seek,” answered the man, adding:  “Fear not, we mean him no harm, but rather good if he is the man we think.”

“Wife,” called my father, “come hither.  Here are men who would know the story of Steinar, and say that they mean him good.”

So my mother came, and the men bowed to her.

“The story of Steinar is short, sirs,” she said.  “His mother, Steingerdi, who was my cousin and the friend of my childhood, married the great chief Hakon, of Agger, two and twenty summers gone.  A year later, just before Steinar was born, she fled to me here, asking shelter of my lord.  Her tale was that she had quarrelled with Hakon because another woman had crept into her place.  Finding that this tale was true, and that Hakon had treated her ill indeed, we gave her shelter, and here her son Steinar was born, in giving birth to whom she died—­of a broken heart, as I think, for she was mad with grief and jealousy.  I nursed him with my son Olaf yonder, and as, although he had news of his birth, Hakon never claimed him, with us he has dwelt as a son ever since.  That is all the tale.  Now what would you with Steinar?”

“This Lady.  The lord Hakon and the three sons whom that other woman you tell of bore him ere she died—­for after Steingerdi’s death he married her—­were drowned in making harbour on the night of the great gale eighteen days ago.”

“That is the day when the bear nearly killed Steinar,” I interrupted.

“Well for him, then, young sir, that he escaped this bear, for now, as it seems to us, he is the lord of all Hakon’s lands and people, being the only male left living of his issue.  This, by the wish of the head men of Agger, where is Hakon’s hall, we have come to tell him, if he still lives, since by report he is a goodly man and brave—­one well fitted to sit in Hakon’s place.

“Is the heritage great?” asked my father.

“Aye, very great, Lord.  In all Jutland there was no richer man than Hakon.”