"Well," began King Harald, "our home is in Thuleland, as the Skalds call it; in Goetaland, as we name it. For Thuleland is the land where one does _not_ dwell; where only, still nearer to the ice-mountains, _other_ people live. Our realm reaches, towards the rising of the sun, to the sea and our island, Gothland; towards the setting of the sun, as far as Hallin and the Skioldungahaff; towards midday, to Smaland, Skone, and the kingdom of the Sea-Danes; towards midnight, to Svealand. The King is my father, Frode, whom Odin loves. He is much wiser than I; but he has now crowned me as Vi-king, upon the sacred-stone at King-Sala, because he is already a hundred years old, and quite blind. Now the minstrels in our halls still sing the legends which tell that you Goths were originally our brothers, and that only by reason of the wandering of the peoples have you gradually drawn nearer to the south; for you followed the flight of the crane from the Caucasus, but we the running of the wolf." "If that be so," said King Totila, smiling, "I prefer the crane for a guide." "It may well seem so to thee, sitting here in this gay drinking-hall," answered King Harald gravely. "But however that maybe--and I do not quite believe it, for then we ought to understand each other's words better--we truly and highly honour this our blood-relationship. For a long time nothing but good news came from your warm realm to our cold Gothaland--news of the highest fame. And once my father and your King Thidrekr,[1] who is praised by the harp-songs of our Skalds, exchanged envoys and gifts, through the agency of the Esthes, who live on the Austrway. These men led our envoys to the Wends, on the Wyzla; these to the Longobardians, on the Tisia; these to the Herulians, on the Dravus; these through Savia to Salona and Ravenna." "Thou art a man learned in roads and countries," observed Totila.