Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 3.djvu/94

 82 CHRONICLE OF THE SAGA IX. Chapteh LXXXIV. Thord's dream. Chapter LXXXV. King Hanild's dream. There was also a man called Tliord, in a ship which lay not far from the king's. He dreamt one night that he saw King Harald's fleet coming to land, and he knew the land to be England. He saw a great battle-array on the land; and he thought both sides began to fight, and had many banners flapping in the air. And before the army of the people of the coun- try was riding a huge witch- wife upon a wolf; and the wolf had a man's carcass in his mouth, and the blood was dropping from his jaws ; and when he had eaten up one body she threw another into his mouth, and so one after another, and he swallowed them all. And she sang thus : — ^' Skade's eagle eyes The king's ill luck espies; Though glancing shields Hide the green fields^ The king's ill luck she spies. To bode the doom of this great king, The flesh of bleeding men I fling To hairy jaw and hungry maw ! To hairy jaw and hungry maw! " King Harald also dreamt one night that he was in Nidaros, and met his brother King Olaf, who sang to him these verses : — " In many a fight My name was bright ; Men weep_, and tell How Olaf fell. Thy death is near ; Thy corpse, I fear. The crow will feed. The witch-wife's steed." Many other dreams and forebodings were then told of, and most of them gloomy. Before King Harald left Drontheim, he let his son Magnus be proclaimed king, and set him as king over Norway while he was absent. Thora, the daughter of Thorberg, also re- mained behind; but he took with him Queen Elisof