King Hartstein, however, wished for delay, until Hartvik and Eigil
should have returned from a campaign. Then their reception feast and
the marriage could be celebrated together.
Hartvik was the king's son, and Harthild's own brother; and Eigil was
son to the king's brother, and Harthild's cousin.
And he would willingly have taken Harthild away as his wife, but she
had said to him, "If thou failest to solve my riddle, thy shorn locks
will cause thee affliction; and if thou solvest my riddle, and I become
thy wife, that will cause thee still deeper affliction, for no love for
thee dwells in my heart: and woe to him who without love wins me for
his wife."
Then Eigil sadly gave it up, although he was a good riddle solver.
And when Hartvik and Eigil were returned there soon grew to be a great
friendship between Halfred and Hartvik, and Halfred and Eigil, and both
loved him so well that they said they would lay down their lives for
him.
And this between Halfred and Hartvik is no great wonder, because
Halfred always won all men's hearts.
But it may well astonish many that Eigil also should thus love him, who
still cherished as much love to Harthild as formerly; and who yet
clearly saw, as all who had eyes could see, that the harsh maiden was
quite filled with love to Halfred.
And jealousy does not often allow it to be admitted that the
nightingale has a more charming voice than the carrion crow.
Hartvik and Egil, however, loved Halfred so dearly that they begged him
to receive them as his blood brothers.
And on the day before the wedding feast was prepared, therefore,
Hartvik and Eigil became Halfred's blood brethren.
They stood with him, as the heathen people do, under a strip of turf,
which was lifted on spear points above their heads, the two ends still
cleaving to the ground, and they mixed the blood which flowed from
gashes in their right arms down upon the black earth beneath their
feet.
And therewith they vowed their heads for ever to the infernal gods if
ever one of the blood brothers should desert the other, in danger or in
need. And so strongly does this oath bind, that even against his own
kith and kin, yea even against his own father, must one blood brother
stand by the other, even until death.