Heimskringla; Or, The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway

18. THE ICELANDERS AND EYVIND THE SKALD.

Eyvind composed a poem about the people of Iceland, for which they rewarded him by each bonde giving him three silver pennies, of full weight and white in the fracture. And when the silver was brought together at the Althing, the people resolved to have it purified, and made into a row of clasps; and after the workmanship of the silver was paid, the row of clasps was valued at fifty marks. This they sent to Eyvind; but Eyvind was obliged to separate the clasps from each other, and sell them to buy food for his household. But the same spring a shoal of herrings set in upon the fishing ground beyond the coast-side, and Eyvind manned a ship's boat with his house servants and cottars, and rowed to where the herrings were come, and sang:—

     "Now let the steed of ocean bound
     O'er the North Sea with dashing sound:
     Let nimble tern and screaming gull
     Fly round and round—our net is full.
     Fain would I know if Fortune sends
     A like provision to my friends.
     Welcome provision 'tis, I wot,
     That the whale drives to our cook's pot."

So entirely were his movable goods exhausted, that he was obliged to sell his arrows to buy herrings, or other meat for his table:—

     "Our arms and ornaments of gold
     To buy us food we gladly sold:
     The arrows of the bow gave we
     For the bright arrows of the sea." (1)

   ENDNOTES: (1) Herrings, from their swift darting along, are called the
     arrows of the sea.