So they set to work, the two boys, and though it was a long job, they got the bear's skin, together with its mighty head and paws; and then they found the pony again, for that was grazing in a field hard by, and they put the skin on its back and Edgiva on the skin, and set off again. And when they reached the castle, and the soldiers saw the skin, they clustered round in wonder, asking who had killed the monster. Wulnoth would have said little, but Guthred said much, and the men caught Wulnoth up and cried, "Skoal" to him, and carried him into the hall and set him down before the King, and laid the head and the claws and the great skin on the floor. And now again Wulnoth would have said little, for he was modest and did not like to boast, and besides, he did not want to seem braver than the Prince, who would have done as he had done if the chance had been his. But Guthred and Edgiva stood at the King's side and told of the fight, and made Wulnoth show his wounds, and the King said that Wulnoth had done a man's deed, and asked him what his reward should be. Now, the King had expected that the boy would ask that the thrall collar should be taken from his neck and from his father's, but Wulnoth made no such request. "O King," he said, "if, as thou sayest, I have done a man's deed, let a man's weapons be given to me now, and let it be my place to guard Edgiva thy daughter, and to sleep across the threshold at night." Then, for a moment, the King paused and frowned, for a memory came of the words of Wyborga that a thrall should marry a king's daughter; and he wondered whether that thrall was to be this boy, and the king's daughter Edgiva; for if he had thought that, though Wulnoth had slain the bear and preserved the Princess, he would have driven his spear through him as he stood, and so have made an end of the matter. Then, when the jarls heard this thrall-boy's words, they cried out that he should be beaten with sticks for his presumption. "Shall the son of a churl be made the Princess's guardian?" they cried. "Are there no sons of noble birth in the land, O King?" But Wulnoth stood out, and turned and showed them the deep wounds made by the claws of the bear, and he cried-- "Many there be more noble in the land, but are there any who would have dared more? Did the bear wound me more lightly than he would have wounded any man? Are these wounds less painful to the churl than they would be to the noble? The King asked me what I desired, and I have answered. I want no other gift, and if this may not be, then let be." "He talks like a man," some laughed; but old Hald, who liked the boy, answered-- "And by the hammer of Thor, he acts like one, and I am minded that our Edgiva would have little to fear with Wulnoth the son of Cerdic as her armed man."