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NOTES 127
‘Stop there, you tall fellow ; don’t row away; we wish to speak with
you.” ‘Your treatment of all our friends,’ answered the boatman, ‘has
never been such as to make me wish to speak with you; and I shall not
wait for you. If we meet, the truth of the proverb will be seen: “One
man is no match for many.””’ Then quoth he:
‘Far, far away is my bold grey-kaired brother, mighty
in thought and deed.
The dusky ship bears down upon my boat,
If we two sons of Hardrad, grey-haired men, were here
together, we should not flee.
O’er the foaming surf the Serpent glides.
‘You would flee all the same,’ said the King, ‘though there were two
of you. Who are you?’ ‘That is no business of yours,’ answered the
man, and thus spoke:
£On the sides of thy ship, the reindeer of the wind,
Play sixty oars, for thee alone.
A mightier prince on earth is scarcely seen,
On my boat’s side there play in my grasp but one or two,
te sweep the billows,
Thus overpowered, I must yield,’
‘And yield you must now,’ said the King. ‘Though I yield,’ answered
the man, ‘I am not to blame. Such a lot must needs befall an old fel-
low in face of so many young and gallant men ; but for all that I shall
never come into your power.” Saying these words, he sprang up with
a sudden start, flung away his oars, and upset the boat under him. In
this way they separated, and the man was never seen again.”
The episode of Thor’s appearance on Arnljot’s ship is based upon
the following passage in the Great O. T. Saga, Chapter 213:
“One day as King Olaf was sailing south along the coast, under a
fair, light wind, there was a man standing on a rock who shouted to
them and begged the favour of a passage towards the south of the coun-
try. King Olaf therefore steered the Serpent to the rock where the man
stood, and he climbed on board. He was a young-looking man of tall
stature, handsome, and he had a red beard. As soon as he came on
board the dragon-ship, he began jesting and wrestling with the King’s
_ men, who found his play rough whenever they tried their strength
against him. He afforded much merriment, and the men amused them-
selves in bantering him and laughing at him. He in return made fun
of the King’s men, and laughed at them as being poor and weakly
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