Chapter XXXIV.
Marriage of Eric, the son of King Haraid.
Eric, Harald's son, was fostered in the house of the herse Thorer, son of Hroald, in the Fiord district. He was the most beloved and honoured by King Harald of all his sons. When Eric was twelve years old, King Harald gave him five long-ships, with which he went on an expedition,—first in the Baltic; then southwards to Denmark, Friesland[1] and Saxonland; on which expedition he passed four years. He then sailed out into the West sea, and plundered in Scotland, Bretland[2], Ireland, and Valland[3], and passed four years more in this way. Then he sailed north to Finmark[4], and all the way to Biarmeland[5] where he had many a battle, and won many a victory. When he came back to Finmark, his men found a girl in a Lapland hut, whose equal for beauty they never had seen. She said her name was Gunhild, and that her father dwelt in Halogaland, and was called Ozur Tote. "I am here," she said, "to learn Lapland-art, from two of the most knowing Laplanders in all Finmark, who are now out hunting. They both want me in marriage. They are so skilful that they can hunt out traces either upon the frozen or the thawed earth, like dogs; and they can run so swiftly on snow-scates, that neither man nor beast can come near them in speed. They hit whatever they take aim at, and thus kill every man who comes near them. When they
- ↑ Friesland appears to have been the name given to the whole coast from the Eyder in Schleswig to North Holland, and to have been called Saxonland (Saxland) or Friesland.
- ↑ Bretland (Britton land) was that part of Britain inhabited by the ancient inhabitants. The sagas give the name of England only to the parts inhabited by the Anglo-Saxons. Wales., Cornwall, and the west coast of the island, are always called Bretland.
- ↑ Valland, the west coast of France, in which the inhabitants of Wales and Cornwall settled in the 5th century.
- ↑ Finmark is the country we call Lapland in the north of Norway and Sweden.
- ↑ Biarmeland was the coast of the White Sea about the mouth of the Dwina, and now the Russian province of Archangel.
