Page:Book of Were-wolves.djvu/63

42 my will, and I wish that you, my brother, with your shrewdness, would devise some help for me.'

"Thorsteinn said,—'I have heard that our kinsman, Thorgrim, has just suffered his little babe to be carried out, at the instigation of his wife. That is ill done. I think also that it is a grievous matter for you to be different in nature from other men.'

"Thorir asked how he could obtain release from his affliction . . . . Then said Thorsteinn, 'Now will I make a vow to Him who created the sun, for I ween that he is most able to take the ban off you, and I will undertake for His sake, in return, to rescue the babe and to bring it up for him, till He who created man shall take it to Himself—for this I reckon He will do!' After this they left their horses and sought the child, and a thrall of Thorir had found it near the Marram river. They saw that a kerchief had been spread over its face, but it had rumpled it up over its nose; the little thing was all but dead, but they took it up and flitted it home to Thorir's house, and he brought the lad up, and called him Thorkell Rumple; as for the berserkr fits, they came on him no more." (c. 37.)

But the most remarkable passages bearing on our subject will be found in the Aigla.