such restraint on their tongues, and stories of a spell and an
Orkney witch, vague and contradictory, but none the less eagerly
listened to and often repeated, went the round of the country. The
king at last began to take alarm, and one day he called Earl
Sigvald to him and talked with him alone.

"What rede can you give, jarl?" he said; "a strange witchcraft I
fear has been at work. When a young man smiles but seldom, broods
often by himself, and shuns the flagon and the feast, there is
something more to be looked for than a loss of men and ships, or
the changefulness of youth."

"Get him a wife," replied the earl. "He has been single too long.
There is no cure for spells like a pair of bright eyes."

But when the king spoke to his son, he found him resolutely
opposed to marriage. Hakon loved him so dearly that he forbore to
press the matter, and again he consulted Earl Sigvald.

"If he will not marry, let him fight," answered the earl. "For a
prince of the race of Yngve, the clash of arms cures melancholy
better than a maid."

So with the coming of spring Estein cruised in the Baltic, and
carried the terror of his arms far into Finland and Russia. Yet he
returned as moody as before.

At feasts his spirits sometimes rose to an extraordinary pitch.
For the time he would be carried away as he had never been before.
He would sing, jest, and quarrel; but his jests were often bitter,