care; but let him beware that I do not fall on him head and shoulders; for here, methinks, I have not too much ground to stand upon. My name, however, is Ottur, and the wise-woman in the watch-tower called to me;--one should hear rightly what has been said before he takes part in a conversation.--Ottur was the name called aloud, not Otto; and if the babbler there in the valley dares again to open his mouth without being summoned, I shall make free to break his head in such manner that he will never speak again.” “Come down then, if thou hast courage to venture a combat,” said Sir Otto, at the same time throwing open his visor; whereupon his double-goer became deadly pale, and fell back as if fainting with terror, rattling and crashing from the high precipice. But now, hark! the notes of the sea-monarch’s war-horn were sounding through the valley; ere long his vulture’s wings began to emerge above the woods; and his golden shield to gleam through the thickets. Otto returned the signal by striking with his sword-hilt against his clanging targe, and ere long Sir Arinbiorn, with a shout of exultation, ran to embrace the youth of whom he had been long in search. “The Swedish general,” said he, “has been inquiring for you as anxiously as if you were his only son, and has sent out above an hundred of the noblest knights to trace out whither you had gone. How anxiously I have played my part among them, Heaven knows; and so for my reward it has fallen to my lot to be your discoverer. A thousand times welcome to my heart, thou noble scion of the northern tree, who art now loaded with triumphs and honours, even as a branch is loaded with blossoms in spring-tide. We have hunted them, young hero, even as if they had been roe, deer, or hares of the forest; for many a long year they will have cause to remember the Swedish frontier; and even in their own pine-tree forests we shall attack them as soon as the autumn and winter have past over. Do you know then already, that idolatrous banner which you seized, and threw down the precipice, was brought up again by one of your own troop? Our Finland captives howled aloud when they beheld it, and cried that their gods had forsaken them. And has any one told you, that the Swedish youth of whom you made a prisoner was the bold Swerker,--the very hope and support of the pagan army? In truth, I feel that my words are confused; for I am so overjoyed and triumphant, to have you again with us.--But what means all this? Why do you stand silent as if lost in your own dreams, and rooted to one spot? What has happened to you, young hero? Perhaps a painful wound----.” “Nay, nay,” answered Sir Otto, “I am well, and free from all wound and bruises; but, to confess the truth, the horrid and supernatural adventures of this valley----.” “Ay, truly,” answered Sir Arinbiorn; “our northern realms are indeed full of such wonders; they are twined, as if in a mysterious web, with the raging waves of our northern seas and the