Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 2.djvu/327

 KINGS OF NORWAY. 319 Then Finn awakened the king, and said that the saga vii. bonder-army advanced against them. The king awoke, and said, " Why did you waken me, Finn, and did not allow me to enjoy my dream?" Finn, " Thou must not be dreaming ; but rather thou shouldst be awake, and preparing thyself against the host which is coming down upon us ; or, dost thou not see that the whole bonder crowd is coming? " The king replies, " They are not yet so near to us, and it would have been better to have let me sleep." Then said Finn, " What was the dream, sire, of which the loss appears to thee so great that thou wouldst rather have been left to waken of thyself?" Now the king told his dream, — that he seemed to see a high ladder, upon which he went so high in the air that heaven was open : for so high reached the ladder. "And when you awoke me, I was come to the highest step towards heaven." Finn replies, " This dream does not appear to me so good as it does to thee. I think it means that thou art fey* ; unless it be the mere want of sleep that has worked upon thee." When King Olaf was arrived at Stiklestad, it hap- Chapter pened, among other circumstances, that a man came of Amiiot to him ; and although it was nowise wonderful that there came many men from the districts, yet this must be regarded as unusual, that this man did not appear like the other men who came to him. He was so tall that none stood higher than up to his shoulders : very handsome he was in countenance, and had beau- tiful fair hair. He was well armed ; had a fine helmet, and ring armour ; a red shield ; a superb sword in his belt; and in his hand a gold-mounted spear, the shaft of it so thick that it was a handful to grasp. composed action or word; but foretelling his speedy death. Gellina's baptism.
 * The involuntary actions or words of a man doomed, not sane and