Page:The book of wonder voyages (1919).djvu/208



NCE there was a King who reigned at Drontheim in Norroway. He was named Thrond, and he had a son, Eric, young and handsome and goodly to see. Now it happed at one Yule-Tide there was among the guests a certain Thorkill, a swart and sturdy man that seemed a seafarer and one accustomed to lead men. When the cups had been drunk out and the time for telling of tales had come, Thrond called upon this Thorkill to say his say first of all men. And he spake thus. . ..

Thorkill's Story of how he Fared to the Glittering Plain and to the Halls of Geirrod

"If I have aught, Sir King, that can appear new to you or please your ears, it is what I passed through in my search for Geirrod's Home. For from the days of my youth onward I had heard of the mighty stores of treasure piled up in that land. Yet was the way thither full of terrors and dangers, and few of mortal men had reached it, and still fewer come back from it. For Geirrod's Home, they said, was beyond ocean that lies 186