A second, and again a third time, when they had been refreshed by a short rest, they ventured forth to the air with outspread wings.
At last the lesser of them came back without his fellow, and with wings smeared with blood.

He was amazed with this imagination, and, being in a deep sleep, uttered a cry to betoken his astonishment, filling the whole house with an uproarious shout.

When his servants questioned him, he related his vision; and Thyra, thinking that she would be blest with offspring, forbore her purpose to put off her marriage, eagerly relaxing the chastity for which she had so hotly prayed.

Exchanging celibacy for love, she granted her husband full joy of herself, requiting his virtuous self-restraint with the fulness of permitted intercourse, and telling him that she would not have married him at all, had she not inferred from these images in the dream which he had related, the certainty of her being fruitful.
By a device as cunning as it was strange, Thyra's pretended modesty passed into an acknowledgment of her future offspring.

Nor did fate disappoint her hopes.