I forgive you, Steinar, if I have aught to forgive, and I tell you, so weary am I of this world, which I feel holds little that is good, that, if I might, I'd yield up my life instead of yours, and go to seek the others, though I doubt whether I should find them, since I think that our roads are different.

Hark! the priests call me.

Steinar, there's no need to bid you to be brave, for who of our Northern race is not?
That's our one heritage: the courage of a bull.

Yet it seems to me that there are other sorts of courage which we lack: to tread the dark ways of death with eyes fixed on things gentler and better than we know.

Pray to our gods, Steinar, since they are the best we have to pray to, though dark and bloody in their ways; pray that we may meet again, where priests and swords are not and women work no ruin, where we may love as we once loved in childhood and there is no more sin.