Two incidents must still be told. The first concerns the raven banner that Earl Sigurd carried to the fight. It was made in raven-shape, and when the wind blew out the folds it was as though a raven spread its wings for flight.[32] The banner, which was wrought with fine needlework of marvellous skill, had been made for Sigurd by his mother, a princess of Irish birth, whose father was Karval, Prince of Dublin. So clever was she that she had a reputation for witchcraft, for men thought her knowledge was greater than that of a woman. She was a person of spirit and mettle; for once when her young son, Sigurd, asked her advice as to whether he should go out to fight with a Scotch earl, whose followers were seven times greater in number than his own, she scornfully bade him go. “Had I known that thou hadst a desire to live for ever,” she had said, “I should have kept thee safely rolled up in my wool-bag. Fate rules life, but not where a man stands at the helm; and better it is to die with honour than to live with shame. Take thou this banner which I have made for thee with all my cunning; I ween it will bring victory to those before whom it is borne, but death to him who carries it.” This was true; wherever the raven banner went victory followed after it, and men were slain before it, but he who was standard-bearer always met his death. Thus the banner came to have an evil fame, and it was not easy to find a man to carry it into battle. In the battle of Clontarf the banner was borne aloft before the earl, but one of the bearers after another had fallen. Then Earl Sigurd called on Thorstein, son of Hall o’ the Side, to bear the flag, and Thorstein was about to lift it when a man called out: “Do not bear the banner; for all those who do so come by their death. Through it three of my sons have been slain.” “Hrafn the Red,” called out the earl, “bear thou the banner.” “Bear thine own crow thyself,” answered Hrafn. Then the earl said: “’Tis fittest that the beggar should bear his own bag, indeed”; and with that he took down the banner from its staff, and hid it under his cloak. Only a short time after that, the earl fell, pierced through by a spear.