But this is a matter we need to hear more concerning.

Do you bring us that stranger that he may tell us what he knows." I went to the hall again, and found him easily enough, for all men were looking at him.

He was in the midst of the hall, juggling in marvellous wise with a heavy woodman's axe, which he played with as if it were a straw for lightness.

Even as I entered from the door on the high place he was whirling it for a mighty stroke which seemed meant to cleave a horn cup which he had set on a stool before him, and I wondered.

But he stayed the stroke as suddenly as if his great arms had been turned to steel, so that the axe edge rested on the rim of the vessel without so much as notching it, and at that all the onlookers cheered him.
"Now it may be known," said he, smiling broadly, "why men call me Thorgils the axeman." Then he threw the unhandy weapon into the air whirling, and caught it as it came to hand again, so that it balanced on his palm, and so he held it as I went to him, and told him the king would speak with him.
Whereon he threw the axe at the doorpost, so that it stuck there, and laughed at the new shout of applause, and so turned down his sleeves and bade me lead him where I would.
He made a stiff, outlandish salute as he stood before Ina, and the king returned it.
"I have sent for you now, friend, rather than wait for morning," he said, "for it seems to me that we have business that must be seen to with the first light.