"So!" exclaimed Wulf the Skater. "I have been out far on the ice, when there was no wind and there was a bright moon, and I have gone landward with speed lest their voices should overtake me. I heard them loudly once, and that night I was chased by many wolves. I slew some, but I stopped not for their skins, for the rest were an army."
"Glad am I," said Ulric, "that if I meet one of these gods I can speak to him fairly well in his own tongue. How else, for instance, could I question this Jew god? We shall sail all around the coasts of the Middle Sea before we come home."
"What couldst thou ask him?" replied Knud. "And what thinkest thou he might tell thee?"
"One thing that Hilda knew not," said Ulric. "I am curious if the gods of those lands know the gods of the North. I would know if this Jew god hath ever met with Odin and Thor, and whether or not they are friends. If they have fights, as do our own gods, which of them is the stronger? I have thought that if I were a god, I would bring all the others under me. It is not managed well."
"I would not have land gods meddling too much with the sea, save in battles," said Tostig. "It is well as it is. But the Middle Sea is wide; we may not look upon all of its coasts. There are deep bays and many islands."
"They say," responded Ulric, "that there is an open water leading southward, and that if one can find it and will sail into it boldly, fearing nothing, he may follow its leading until he shall find the city of Asgard and the home of the gods. Moreover, there are lands which no foot hath trodden. I would see some of them if they are to be found by sailing not too far."
So said they all, and there were other tales to tell concerning seas and lands.
They still were talking of these things when a loud shout from one of the watchers summoned them, and they rushed out to the gunwales and the decks. The rain was no longer falling and the sky was clear, so that they saw well what was doing. The ice king had not at all lost his grip upon his own floes, but southward was a vast rift in the ice pack. Wide and blue was the open water, but it was not very near them, and as they were looking at it from their icy anchorage the watcher shouted again: