“Hereward, king, hight I, Holy Leofric my father, In Westminster wiser None walked with King Edward. High minsters he builded, Pale monks he maintained. Dead is he, a bed-death, A leech-death, a priest-death, A straw-death, a cow’s death. Such doom I desire not. To high heaven, all so softly, The angels uphand him, In meads of May flowers Mild Mary will meet him. Me, happier, the Valkyrs Shall waft from the war-deck, Shall hail from the holmgang Or helmet-strewn moorland. And sword-strokes my shrift be, Sharp spears be my leeches, With heroes’ hot corpses High heaped for my pillow.” “Skall to the Viking!” shouted the Danes once more, at this outburst of heathendom, common enough among their half-converted race, in times when monasticism made so utter a divorce between the life of the devotee and that of the worldling, that it seemed reasonable enough for either party to have their own heaven and their own hell. After all, Hereward was not original in his wish. He had but copied the death-song which his father’s friend and compeer, Siward Digre, the victor of Dunsinane, had sung for himself some three years before. All praised his poetry, and especially the quickness of his alliterations (then a note of the highest art); and the old king filling not this time the horn, but a golden goblet, bid him drain it and keep the goblet for his song. Young Sigtryg leapt up, and took the cup to Hereward. “Such a scald,” he said, “ought to have no meaner cup-bearer than a king’s son.” Hereward drank it dry; and then fixing his eyes meaningly on the Prince, dropt the Princess’s ring into the cup, and putting it back into Sigtryg’s hand, sang,-- “The beaker I reach back More rich than I took it. No gold will I grasp Of the king’s, the ring-giver, Till, by wit or by weapon, I worthily win it. When brained by my biter O’Brodar lies gory, While over the wolf’s meal Fair widows are wailing.” “Does he refuse my gift?” grumbled Ranald. “He has given a fair reason,” said the Prince, as he hid the ring in his bosom; “leave him to me; for my brother in arms he is henceforth.” After which, as was the custom of those parts, most of them drank too much liquor. But neither Sigtryg nor Hereward drank; and the two Siwards stood behind their young uncle’s seat, watching him with that intense admiration which lads can feel for a young man. That night, when the warriors were asleep, Sigtryg and Hereward talked out their plans. They would equip two ships; they would fight all the kinglets of Cornwall at once, if need was; they would carry off the Princess, and burn Alef’s town over his head, if he said nay. Nothing could be more simple than the tactics required in an age when might was right. Then Hereward turned to his two nephews who lingered near him, plainly big with news.