“So it happened, that once on a time the old hero said to his daughter, ‘Pretty Sigrid, leave your household cares for one day and go forth into the woods,--pluck there the red berries and green leaves that you wot of, for to-morrow I shall need your aid. I have a hard battle before me.’ ‘With whom then, father, do you mean to fight?’ said the fair Sigrid. ‘With the young Hakon Swendson,’ answered the old warrior, ‘who in his ambition will wing his flight above me through all the regions of the north, if I do not take care in time to clip his wings. Besides, you know that he is sprung from a race, betwixt whom and us there is an old and deadly feud.’ So the beautiful Sigrid went out towards sunset into the dusky woods, alone and unprotected, according to the laws of her mysterious science. “Up and down the rocky cliffs, along the banks of the woodland river, through many a dim valley, and on the brink of many a fearful precipice, the fair damsel pursued her way, and by the time she had collected all her roots, leaves, and berries, she found that the night-shadows had already gathered around her, and that she was alone in a district of the forest which she had till now never beheld. Her whole attention had been fixed on her plants and flowers, and she had never thought of the stars, that had shone out one by one above her, and now, though they glittered so brightly, yet she was quite unable by their light to discover her road homewards. While she thus stood meditative, and doubtful what course to pursue, she heard a great crashing and rustling through the woods, and, behold! a frightful black bear, rearing himself on his hind-legs, broke out as if to devour her, or strangle her in his horrid embraces. Just as she had given herself up for lost, a javelin came hissing through the air over her head, and in the next moment she saw the bear struck through the heart, fall writhing on the ground, so that, in the next moment, he rolled over a neighbouring precipice.