"His mother, Steingerdi, who was my cousin and the friend of my childhood, married the great chief Hakon, of Agger, two and twenty summers gone.

A year later, just before Steinar was born, she fled to me here, asking shelter of my lord.

Her tale was that she had quarrelled with Hakon because another woman had crept into her place.

Finding that this tale was true, and that Hakon had treated her ill indeed, we gave her shelter, and here her son Steinar was born, in giving birth to whom she died--of a broken heart, as I think, for she was mad with grief and jealousy.

I nursed him with my son Olaf yonder, and as, although he had news of his birth, Hakon never claimed him, with us he has dwelt as a son ever since.