and he hardened arrows in his fire, setting flints in the points of them and in like manner made himself a spear, but no sword had he. In the forest he stayed for many a month, but never could bide two nights in the one place, for the fever of unrest that was upon him kept him ever awandering. All through the day he sat upon fallen trees or down by the gowans on the wayside with his head sunk upon his breast and the water coursing down his cheeks, yet knew not what it was that made him greet. And in the night he would wander the forest through, or bathe his fevered limbs in dark streams; and when hunger fell on him he followed the chase, and so swift of foot he grew and so strong of his hands that the wild boar, the wolf, and deer found him a dreich blow-dealer. So it chanced that soon there was little in him that was like to the Feargus of the lady Torfrida, richly clad and gay and strong. His red hair hung to his waist and his beard fell down an ell before him and wild and trackless as the wilderness through which he strayed. His plaid was ragged and faded, and his skin of the colour of the ripened grain. Shelter he never knew, but such was his hardihood that he lay out in the wind and rain, through winter and summer alike without scath. CHAPTER XI OF OSBERT AND TORFRIDA From the field of Winwid Osbert was taken by Sigmund to his hall at Lindum, and when the wounds that Feargus had given to him were healed, he made a great friendship with king Sigmund and became his man, for he thought with the king’s aid so to work that he might win Torfrida. The lands of Sigmund marched with those of Osbert, and by compassing the death of the youth Edwy and wedding Torfrida, he could join the two lands and be a great ruler. And Sigmund having so famous a captain to do his bidding, with all his warriors, waxed strong. And finding that his son Edwy set his face against any friendship with Osbert and was, moreover, not of a mind to make war—for war he hated—Sigmund found little pleasure in the boy and gave all his counsel to Osbert. Much Osbert sought the company of Torfrida, and though she would have kept aloof, she knew that her father wished her to wed him and dare not thwart him openly. So he ran daily to do her bidding and many services he rendered, thinking to put her in his debt, but she treated him ill until her father seeing, spoke. “Thy father wills that thou shouldst marry the prince Osbert who is a great and comely man, and such as the daughter of the proudest king might wed with.” Then Torfrida said: “Never will I, who have been betrothed to the noblest warrior of all this land, wed such as Osbert, who was ever his enemy and brought ruin upon both him and me.”