And now there came many, drawn to him by the wish to be his sailing comrades, even from the furthest islands of the western sea, so that he could have manned seven ships. He manned, however, only the Singing Swan, with three hundred men whom he chose himself, and with them he set sail upon the sea.
And now there would be much which might be told about the great victories which Halfred won, through many long years, with hammer and harp, on all the seas from Mikilgard--which the Latins call Byzantium--even to the island of Hibernia, in the far west.
And of all these feats and victories, voyages and minstrelsy, and contests of arms and harp playing, had I, as a child by the cloister hearth, heard the Skalds sing, and wandering guests recount, long before I looked into Halfred's sea-grey eyes.
For during the long time that he was wholly lost sight of, and the Singing Swan had vanished in flames, and all people held Halfred for dead, the Skalds composed many songs about him. But that was later.
At that time Halfred thus roamed about everywhere, singing and triumphing, winning fights at sea, and contests in palaces. And because he was victor over all the Skalds in singing competitions, the people named him "Sigskald," and from that, the heathen people, prophesying backwards, invented, perhaps, that fable about the elf which had given him honey, and his name, in the cradle.
And he amassed great spoils, and many hundred rings of red gold, and gave them all away again to his sailing comrades. And yet he still heaped up rich hords upon the Singing Swan; and brought also much treasure to Hamund's hall, where he was wont to pass the winter.
And he splendidly improved the hall, and built over against it a great Mead hall, in which a thousand men could drink: and six steps led to the seat of honour in the Mead hall.
But the most costly thing among all his spoils was a candelabrum--"Lampas" the Greeks call it--half as high as a man, of pure gold, with seven flaming arms, which far away, in the land of Greece, he had borne away from a marble city that he had burned.
And this treasure Halfred himself prized highly, who otherwise cared nothing for gold. And at the Yule feast, and the Midsummer feast, and at all high festivals, it must stand close before him upon the table, with its sevenfold flame.