“Mind you,” she said through her tears, “that man who came to us one time, when we dwelt at Skog? He that knew all the ancient lays? Mind you the lay of a dead man that was come back from the world of torment, and told his son the story of all that he had seen? There was heard a groaning from Hell’s deepest ground, the querns of untrue women grinding mould for their husbands’ meat. Bloody were the stones they dragged at—bloody hung the hearts from out their breasts—” Lavrans was silent. “All these years have I thought upon those words,” said Ragnfrid. “Every day ’twas as though my heart was bleeding, for every day methought I ground you mould for meat—” Lavrans know not himself why he answered as he did. It seemed to him his breast was empty and hollow, like the breast of a man that has had the blood-eagle carven through his back. But he laid his hand heavily and wearily on his wife’s head, and spoke: “Mayhap mould must needs be ground, my Ragnfrid, before the meat can grow.” When she tried to take his hand and kiss it, he snatched it away. But then he looked down at his wife, took one of her hands and laid it on his knee, and bowed his cold, stiffened face down upon it. And so they sat on, motionless, speaking no word more. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ● Transcriber’s Notes: ○ There is no section number 7 in Book III. ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected. ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book. ○ Text that: was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_); was in bold by is enclosed by “equal” signs (=bold=).