_Angantyr._ Thou knowest not, Thou art wretched in speech, Imprudent woman, At what thou art glad. This _Tyrfing_ will, If thou canst believe it,[207] All thy kin, Maiden, destroy. _Hervör._ I will go down To the steeds of the sea;[208] Now is the king’s daughter In a good mind; I fear little, Kinsman of chiefs, How my sons May hereafter quarrel. _Angantyr._ Thou shalt own it And enjoy it long, But hidden keep The slayer of Hjalmar; Touch thou not its edges, Poison is in both, This doomer of men Is worse than disease. Farewell, daughter, I would quickly give thee The vigour of twelve men If thou would’st believe it;[209] The strength and endurance, All the good That the sons of Arngrim Left after themselves. “Then she went down to the sea, and when it dawned she saw that the ships had left. The vikings had been afraid of the thunderings and the fires in the island”[210] (Hervarar Saga, c. 10). _Burial in ships._—The mode of burial in ships would appear to have belonged exclusively to the North, where it seems to have been in much favour, and shows in a remarkable manner the seafaring character of the people. Until recently few descriptions have been more ridiculed by persons who did not believe in the Saga literature, than those which gave accounts of burials of chiefs, warriors, and others in ships. Here again archæology has come to our aid to prove the truthfulness of the Sagas, and in such a perfect manner as to settle the question beyond controversy; for we find ships in which the body of the dead warrior was not burned, and other ships which have been used as a pyre. The earliest account of such burial is in Voluspa, amplified in the later Edda, which gives us a vivid description of the funeral of Baldr, the son of Odin.