"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,[2] 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.
[Footnote 2: Ansgarius was originally a monk from the monastery of New Corbie, in Saxony, to which several of the monks of Corbie in France had migrated in A.D. 822. Its abbot, Paschasius Radbert, who died in 865, was, according to Cardinal Bellarmine, the first fully to propagate the belief, now entertained in the Roman Catholic Church, of the corporeal presence of the Saviour in the sacrament. Ansgarius, who was very enthusiastic, accepted a mission to the north of Europe, and preached Christianity in Denmark and Sweden. Jutland was for some time the scene of his labours, and he made many converts there; also in Sleswig, where a Christian school for children was established, who, on leaving it, were sent to spread Christianity throughout the country. An archbishopric was founded by the then Emperor of Germany in conformity to a plan which had been traced, though not carried out, by Charlemagne; and this was bestowed upon Ansgarius. But the church he had built was burnt by some still heathen Danes, who, gathering a large fleet, invaded Hamburg, which they also reduced to ashes. The emperor then constituted him Bishop of Bremen.--_Trans._]