Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 2.djvu/55

 KINGS OF NORWAY. 47 he called out to his forecastle-men to cut the cables sagavii. and cast the ship loose, which they did. Then the king's men threw grapplings over the timber heads of the ship, and so held her fast to their own ; but the earl ordered the timber heads to be cut away, which was done. So says Sigvat : — " The earl, his noble ship to save, To cut the posts loud order gave. The ship escaped : our greedy eyes Had looked on her as a clear prize. The earl escaped; but ere he fled We feasted Odin's fowls with dead; — With many a goodly corpse that floated Round our ship's stern his birds were bloated." Einar Tambarskelver had laid his ship right along- side the earl's. They threw an anchor over the bows of the earl's ship, and thus towed her away, and they slipped out of the fiord together. Thereafter the whole of the earl's fleet took to flight, and rowed out of the fiord. The scald Berse Torfeson was on the forecastle of the earl's ship ; and as it was gliding past the king's fleet, King Olaf called out to him — for he knew Berse, who was distinguished as a remarkably handsome man, always well equipt in clothes and arms — " Farewell, Berse ! " He replied, " Farewell, king ! " So says Berse himself, in a poem he composed when he fell into King Olaf 's power, and was laid in prison and in fetters on board a ship : — " Olaf the Brave A ' farewell ' gave, . (No time was there to parley long,) To me who knows the art of song. The scald was fain ' Farewell ' again In the same terms back to send — The rule in arms to foe or friend. Earl Swend's distress I well can guess, When flight he was compelled to take: His fortunes I will ne'er forsake.