One Teague MacMurrough, indeed, a famous bard of those parts, composed unto his harp a song of Clontarf, the fame whereof reached Ranald’s ears, and so amused him that he rested not day or night till he had caught the hapless bard and brought him in triumph into Waterford. There he compelled him, at sword’s point, to sing, to him and his housecarles the Milesian version of the great historical event: and when the harper, in fear and trembling, came to the story of Ranald’s own death at Brian Boru’s hands, then the jolly old Viking laughed till the tears ran down his face; and instead of cutting off Teague’s head, gave him a cup of goodly wine, made him his own harper thenceforth, and bade him send for his wife and children, and sing to him every day, especially the song of Clontarf and his own death; treating him very much, in fact, as English royalty, during the last generation, treated another Irish bard whose song was even more sweet, and his notions of Irish history even more grotesque, than those of Teague MacMurrough.
It was to this old king, or rather to his son Sigtryg, godson of Sigtryg Silkbeard, and distant cousin of his own, that Hereward now took his way, and told his story, as the king sat in his hall, drinking “across the fire,” after the old Norse fashion. The fire of pine logs was in the midst of the hall, and the smoke went out through a louver in the roof. On one side was a long bench, and in the middle of it the king’s high arm-chair; right and left of him sat his kinsmen and the ladies, and his sea-captains and men of wealth. Opposite, on the other side of the fire, was another bench. In the middle of that sat his marshal, and right and left all his housecarles. There were other benches behind, on which sat more freemen, but of lesser rank.
And they were all drinking ale, which a servant poured out of a bucket into a great bull’s horn, and the men handed round to each other.
Then Hereward came in, and sat down on the end of the hindermost bench, and Martin stood behind him, till one of the ladies said,--
“Who is that young stranger, who sits behind there so humbly, though, he looks like an earl’s son, more fit to sit here with us on the high bench?”
