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[Illustration: "It was Rolf in his weapons"]




THE STORY OF ROLF

AND THE VIKING'S BOW


BY

ALLEN FRENCH

AUTHOR OF "THE JUNIOR CUP," "SIR MARROK," ETC.


ILLUSTRATED BY

BERNARD J. ROSENMEYER


BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1918

_Copyright, 1904_,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

_All rights reserved_

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.




TO MY BROTHER

HOLLIS FRENCH




PREFACE


From thirty to sixty years ago appeared the greater number of the
English translations of the Icelandic sagas. Since then the reading of
these heroic tales has so completely gone out of style that their
names are rarely mentioned in schools or even colleges. What boy feels
his blood stir at the mention of Grettir? How many lovers of good
reading know that the most human of all epics lie untouched on the
shelves of the public libraries? The wisdom of Njal, the chivalry of
Gunnar, the villainy of Mord, the manhood of Kari, the savagery of
Viga-Glum, the craft of Snorri, and the fine qualities of Biarni, of
Biorn, of Skarphedinn, of Illugi, of Kolskegg, of Hrut, of
Blundketil--all these are forgotten in the curious turn of taste which
has made the stories of a wonderful people almost a lost literature.

For the Icelanders were a wonderful people. To escape the tyranny of
kings they settled a new land, and there built up the laws and customs
in which we see the promise of modern civilization. Few early peoples
had such a body of laws; few developed such manhood. No better
pictures of a law-abiding, rural, and yet valiant race have ever been
made than in the tales which the Icelanders had the skill to weave
about their heroes, those men who, at home in their island, or so far
abroad as Constantinople, made the name of Icelander respected.

We read of these men and this people in stories which, somewhat too
"old" for boys and girls, reveal the laws, customs, habits of a
thousand years ago. The Njal's Saga, the Grettir's Saga, the
Ere-Dwellers' Saga, and the Gisli's Saga are perhaps the greatest of
those which have been translated. They are reinforced by such shorter
pieces as Hen Thorir's Saga, and the Stories of the Banded Men, the
Heath-Slayings, Hraffnkell Frey's Priest, and Howard the Halt. The
spirit of those days is particularly well given in that wonderful
fragment of Thorstein Staffsmitten which (not being part of any
complete saga) has been drawn upon for the closing incidents of the
present story. Many other such incidents are preserved, a reference to
one of which (in a footnote to--I think--the Ere-Dwellers' Saga) gave
the suggestion for the main plot of this book. At the same time, in
contemporary writings, we may read of the life of other divisions of
the Scandinavian race; the story nearest to this book is the
Orkneyingers' Saga.

The main interest of all these tales is the same: they tell of real
men and women in real circumstances, and show them human in spite of
the legends which have grown about them. The sagas reveal the
characteristics of our branch of the Aryan race, especially the
personal courage which is so superior to that of the Greek and Latin
races, and which makes the Teutonic epics (whether the Niebelungen
Lied, the Morte Darthur, or the Njala) much more inspiring than the
Iliad, the Odyssey, or the Aeneid.

The prominence of law in almost every one of the Icelandic sagas has
been preserved in the following story; and the conditions of life,
whether at home or abroad, have been described as closely as was
possible within the limits of the simple narrative form which the
sagas customarily employed.

    ALLEN FRENCH.

    CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS,
    _May, 1904_.




TABLE OF CONTENTS


Chapter                                                          Page

     I. Of the Lighting of the Beacon                               1

    II. Of the Soursops, and the Curse which Hung on Them          20

   III. Kiartan at Cragness                                        28

    IV. Of Einar and Ondott                                        42

     V. The Summoning of Hiarandi                                  53

    VI. Of what Hiarandi should do                                 59

   VII. How Hiarandi received the Lesser Outlawry                  64

  VIII. Of Schemings                                               78

    IX. Of the Outcome of Ondott's Plottings                       91

     X. How Rolf named Witnesses for the Death of Hiarandi        101

    XI. Of Rolf's Search for One to Surpass Him with the Bow      109

   XII. Of the Trial of Skill at Tongue                           121

  XIII. Of that Robber                                            129

   XIV. How Rolf and Einar summoned each other                    145

    XV. Of Suits at the Althing                                   155

   XVI. The Act of Distress                                       166

  XVII. Rolf and Frodi fare abroad                                175

 XVIII. How those Two came into Thraldom                          180

   XIX. Now Men are Shipwrecked                                   192

    XX. How Rolf won his Freedom                                  206

   XXI. How Rolf won the Viking's Bow                             230

  XXII. Now Kiartan Returns                                       253

 XXIII. Of the Coming of Earl Thorfinn                            271

  XXIV. Now Rolf and Grani Quarrel                                279

   XXV. Here Rolf comes to Cragness                               295

  XXVI. Of Grani's Pride                                          313

 XXVII. Odd Doings at Cragness                                    335

XXVIII. Of that Harvest Feast                                     345

  XXIX. Of the Trial of Grani's Pride                             369

   XXX. Of the Saying of those Two Words                          385




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


"It was Rolf in his weapons"                            _Frontispiece_

"'Now Einar dies if my father is hurt'"                     _Page_ 58

"So tall was she that the vikings could not board her"         "  184

"There he sat as if he were still alive, but there was
no sight in his eyes"                                          "  224

"Grani took his sword and his shield, and they stood
up to fight by the spring"                                     "  405




THE STORY OF ROLF




CHAPTER I

OF THE LIGHTING OF THE BEACON


In the time after Iceland had become Christian, and after the burning
of Njal, but before the deaths of Snorri the Priest and Grettir the
Outlaw, there lived at Cragness above Broadfirth a man named Hiarandi,
called the Unlucky. And well was he so named, for he got a poor
inheritance from his father, but he left a poorer to his son.

Now the farm of Cragness was a fertile fell, standing above the land
round about, and girt with crags. Below lay Broadfirth, great and
wide, and Cragness jutted out into it, a danger to ships. It had no
harbor, but a little cove among the rocks, where Hiarandi kept his
boat; and many ships were wrecked on the headland, bringing fortune to
the owners of Cragness, both in goods and firewood. And all the land
about once belonged to the farm. Rich, therefore, would have been the
dwellers at Cragness, but for the doings of Hiarandi's father.

