said: ‘I think it very well told, and nowhere is the truth deviated from; but who taught thee?’ He answered: ‘I used in Iceland to go to the Thing every summer, and every summer I learnt a part of the saga which was told by Haldór Snorrason.’ The king said: ‘It is not strange that thou knowest it well, as thou hast learnt it from him, and this saga shall be of use to thee; thou art welcome to stay with me as long as thou wilt.’ He stayed with the king that winter, and in the spring the king gave him some good wares to trade in, and he became a thriving man” (Harald Hardradi, c. 6). Saga-telling seems to have taken place also in England. “Then Játvard the good (Edward Confessor), son of King Adalrad (Ethelred), was chosen king in England. He remembered the friendship of his father Adalrad with King Olaf Tryggvason. He adopted the custom of telling on the first Easter-day the Saga of King Olaf Tryggvason to his chiefs and hirdmen” (Flateyjarbók, i. 506 (Olaf Tryggvason’s Saga)).[280] Some poets used poetry as their mode of speech. “Sigvat scald had been a long time with King Olaf, who had made him his marshal. Sigvat was not quick of speech in _unbound words_ (prose), but poetry was so easy to him that song flowed from his tongue as fast as he talked; he had made journeys to Valland, and during these he had come to England and met Knut the powerful” (St. Olaf’s Saga (Heimskringla), ch. 170). There were two well-known forms of poetry. The _Drapa_, a heroic laudatory poem, generally written in memory of a deceased man, and _Flokk_, a shorter poem. The memory of some men was extraordinary; the blind scald Stuf recited before King Harald Hardradi in one evening thirty songs; in answer to a question he said that he knew at least half as many more longer drapas. An Icelander, named Stuf, went to Norway, and stayed with a bondi in Upplönd. To him came King Harald Hardradi on a visit, and sat talking to Stuf. “Then the bondi came into the stofa, and said the king must find it dull. ‘It is not so,’ answered the king, ‘for this winter guest of thine entertains me well, and I will drink to him this evening’; and thus it happened. The king talked much to Stuf, and he gave wise answers; when the men went to sleep the king asked Stuf to stay in the room where he was to sleep, in order to entertain him. Stuf did so; when the king was in his bed Stuf entertained him, and sang a flokk, and when it was finished he asked him to sing more. “The king was awake a long time, while Stuf entertained him, and at last said: ‘How many songs hast thou sung now?’ Stuf answered: ‘I intended that you should count them.’ ‘I have done it,’ said the king; ‘they are thirty now, but why doest thou only sing flokks? Doest thou not know any drapas?’ Stuf answered: ‘I know no fewer drapas than flokks, though many flokks which I know are still unsung’” (Fornmanna Sögur, c. 6).