Page:The book of wonder voyages (1919).djvu/227

 of the heroes in their time had dared to seek this, they said, but Eric the Thrond sprang up and said with a mighty oath he would travel south over the world until he discovered Odainsakr, the Land of the Undying. "Who will go with me?" he cried. And eleven of the king's nobles swore the same vow as he. And when spring came he sailed south with them to the Court of Denmark. Now the Danish king's son was also named Eric, and the two young men became close friends, for they were like one another in character. And in the springtime Eric the Dane accompanied his friend to the realm of Gardar and thence to Micklegarth, where the Emperor of Greece holds sway, and they took with them four-and-twenty men, great, tall, strong fellows, famed for valor and hardihood and skill in fighting.

At that time the Emperor of Greece was gathering an army to war against his foes, and he invited the two Erics to join him. He entertained them with all honors, and through an interpreter asked who they were, whence they had come, and what was the purpose of their journey. When he was told that they came from the North, and that their purpose was to see the wide world, he treated them with great kindness and courtesy, and they on their part were of much service to him in his enterprise. And when the Emperor saw that each Northman surpassed two or three Greeks in fighting, and that they were men who might thoroughly be trusted, he gave to them more gold than to his other men and made them his beloved liegemen. And they