"Thy words are much harder than thy heart," said the stork-father. "I know thee better than thou knowest thyself."
And then he made a hop, flapped his wings twice, stretched his legs out behind him, and away he flew, or rather sailed, without moving his wings, until he had got to some distance. Then he brought his wings into play; the sun shone upon his white feathers; he stretched his head and his neck forward, and hastened on his way.
"He is, nevertheless, still the handsomest of them all," said his admiring mate; "but I will not tell him that."
Late that autumn the Viking returned home, bringing with him booty and prisoners. Among these was a young Christian priest, one of the men who denounced the gods of the Northern mythology. Often about this time was the new religion talked of in baronial halls and ladies' bowers the religion that was spreading over all lands of the south, and which, with the holy Ansgarius, had even reached as far as Hedeby. Even little Helga had heard of the pure religion of Christ, who, from love to mankind, had given himself as a sacrifice to save them; but with her it went in at one ear and out at the other, to use a common saying. The word love alone seemed to have made some impression upon her, when she shrunk into the miserable form of a frog in the closed-up chamber. But the Viking's wife had listened to, and felt herself wonderfully affected by, the rumour and the Saga about the Son of the one only true God.
The men, returning from their expedition, had told of the splendid temples of costly hewn stone raised to Him whose errand was love. A pair of heavy golden vessels, beautifully wrought out of pure gold, were brought home, and both had a charming, spicy perfume. They were the censers which the Christian priests swung before the altars, on which blood never flowed; but wine and the consecrated bread were changed into the blood of Him who had given himself for generations yet unborn.
To the deep, stone-walled cellars of the Viking's loghouse was the young captive, the Christian priest, consigned, fettered with cords round his feet and his hands. He was as
beautiful as Baldur to look at, said the Viking's wife, and she was grieved at his fate; but young Helga wished that he should be ham-strung, and bound to the tails of wild oxen.
"Then I should let loose the dogs. Halloo! Then away over bogs and pools to the naked heath. Hah! that would be something pleasant to see still pleasanter to follow him on the wild journey."
But the Viking would not hear of his being put to such a death. On the morrow, as a scoffer and denier of the high gods, he was to be offered up as a sacrifice to them upon the blood stone in the sacred grove. He was to be the first human sacrifice ever offered up there.
Young Helga prayed that she might be allowed to sprinkle with the blood of the captive the images of the gods and the assembled spectators. She sharpened her gleaming knife, and, as one of the large ferocious dogs, of which there were plenty in the courtyard, leaped over her feet, she stuck the knife into his side.
"That is to prove the blade," she exclaimed.
And the Viking's wife was shocked at the savage-tempered, evil-minded girl; and when night came, and the beauteous form and the disposition of her daughter changed, she poured forth her sorrow to her in warm words, which came from the bottom of her heart.
The hideous frog with the ogre head stood before her, and fixed its brown sad eyes upon her, listened, and seemed to understand with a human being's intellect.
"Never, even to my husband, have I hinted at the double sufferings I have through you," said the Viking's wife. "There is more sorrow in my heart on your account than I could have believed. Great is a mother's love. But love never enters your mind. Your heart is like a lump of cold hard mud. From whence did you come to my house?"