Then he inquired how Hjorvard and the folks were in dear Gotland, in Engel, and in old Norway, and added that he hoped to go and see once more the land of his ancestors before he should go on his burning journey to Valhalla and lie under his mound.
Ivar told him of the great deeds that had taken place since all the fleets had scattered, and what he had himself accomplished in foreign lands.
“Well done,” said Grammar; “I can see that thou art a Yngling, and worthy of thy kinsmen who are dead.”
Then Ivar presented to him two magnificent velvet cloaks from Greece; a superb coat of mail of exquisite workmanship, made by a smith from Gotland; several brooches to fasten his cloaks with; helmets, saxes, and swords of fine workmanship; a beautiful necklace of gold for Hildigunn, and bracelets for his other daughters. Ivar noticed that the dress of the women and men, the weapons and ornaments, were of the same style as those worn by the people in the Viking lands. Like the emigrants of our days, they had brought their customs, religion, and fashions with them.
A few jewels which had come with the people who had first landed at Wilbraham were still kept as family heirlooms, though most of them had been buried with the dead. These were “fibulæ,” or brooches, of cruciform and circular shape, mosaic and glass beads, which were worn by the people in the first and second centuries.
Not far from Grammar’s residence and temple, and overlooking the river, was the graveyard of the first Norse settlers who had come to that part of Britain. There were graves where the bodies had not been burned; in others the burned bones were preserved in cinerary urns, or in wooden buckets with bronze trappings. Weapons, jewels, ornaments of bronze, tweezers with ear-pickers, iron spears, iron shears, knives, glass and mosaic beads, had been put on the pyre and fired or destroyed by its fire. Coins of Trajan, 96-98 A.D.; Hadrian, 117-138 A.D.; Aurelius, 160-180 A.D.; Maximus, 286-305 A.D., told the age of the graveyard, which was a very exact counterpart of the burial places of the mother country.
One day, while a great feast was taking place, Hildigunn and her sisters came into the hall. She was tall and slender; her hair was flaxen, falling gracefully over her shoulders, far below her waist; her eyes were of a deep, soft blue, which contrasted charmingly with her delicate, rosy complexion. She walked toward Ivar and said to him: “Hail to thee, my kinsman, we also are of Odin’s kin. Hail you all Ynglingar and Skoldungar and high-born men who are with us here to-day.”