



Produced by A. Elizabeth Warren.  HTML version by Al Haines.









THE THRALL OF LEIF THE LUCKY

A Story of Viking Days


By Ottilie A. Liljencrantz




CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
  Where Wolves Thrive Better than Lambs

CHAPTER II
  The Maid in the Silver Helmet

CHAPTER III
  A Gallant Outlaw

CHAPTER IV
  In a Viking Lair

CHAPTER V
  The Ire of a Shield-Maiden

CHAPTER VI
  The Song of Smiting Steel

CHAPTER VII
  The King's Guardsman

CHAPTER VIII
  Leif the Cross-Bearer

CHAPTER IX
  Before the Chieftain

CHAPTER X
  The Royal Blood of Alfred

CHAPTER XI
  The Passing of the Scar

CHAPTER XII
  Through Bars of Ice

CHAPTER XIII
  Eric the Red in His Domain

CHAPTER XIV
  For the Sake of the Cross

CHAPTER XV
  A Wolf-Pack in Leash

CHAPTER XVI
  A Courtier of the King

CHAPTER XVII
  The Wooing of Helga

CHAPTER XVIII
  The Witch's Den

CHAPTER XIX
  Tales of the Unknown West

CHAPTER XX
  Alwin's Bane

CHAPTER XXI
  The Heart of a Shield-Maiden

CHAPTER XXII
  In the Shadow of the Sword

CHAPTER XXIII
  A Familiar Blade in a Strange Sheath

CHAPTER XXIV
  For Dear Love's Sake

CHAPTER XXV
  "Where Never Man Stood Before"

CHAPTER XXVI
  Vinland the Good

CHAPTER XXVII
  Mightier than the Sword

CHAPTER XXVIII
  "Things that are Fated"

CHAPTER XXIX
  The Battle to the Strong

CHAPTER XXX
  From Over the Sea

CONCLUSION



FOREWORD

THE Anglo-Saxon race was in its boyhood in the days when the Vikings
lived. Youth's fresh fires burned in men's blood; the unchastened
turbulence of youth prompted their crimes, and their good deeds were
inspired by the purity and whole-heartedness and divine simplicity of
youth. For every heroic vice, the Vikings laid upon the opposite scale
an heroic virtue. If they plundered and robbed, as most men did in the
times when Might made Right, yet the heaven-sent instinct of hospitality
was as the marrow of their bones. No beggar went from their doors
without alms; no traveller asked in vain for shelter; no guest but was
welcomed with holiday cheer and sped on his way with a gift. As
cunningly false as they were to their foes, just so superbly true were
they to their friends. The man who took his enemy's last blood-drop with
relentless hate, gave his own blood with an equally unsparing hand if in
so doing he might aid the cause of some sworn brother. Above all, they
were a race of conquerors, whose knee bent only to its proved superior.
Not to the man who was king-born merely, did their allegiance go, but to
the man who showed himself their leader in courage and their master in
skill. And so it was with their choice of a religion, when at last the
death-day of Odin dawned. Not to the God who forgives, nor to the God
who suffered, did they give their faith; but they made their vows to the
God who makes men strong, the God who is the never-dying and
all-powerful Lord of those who follow Him.



The Thrall of Leif the Lucky




CHAPTER I

WHERE WOLVES THRIVE BETTER THAN LAMBS

    Vices and virtues
    The sons of mortals bear
    In their breasts mingled;
    No one is so good That no failing attends him,
    Nor so bad as to be good for nothing.
        Ha'vama'l (High Song of Odin).


It was back in the tenth century, when the mighty fair-haired warriors
of Norway and Sweden and Denmark, whom the people of Southern Europe