Our parting was not as it had been before, when we knew that sooner or later we should forgather in one place or the other.
"I think, my cousin," he said, "that the time will soon come when I shall head north again for Norway, and I long for the sign that I must go.

I am going to sail now towards Jerusalem Land, that I may at least try to see the Holy Places before I die.

It may be that I shall reach that land, and it may be not, but when the sign comes I must turn back and go to fight the last fight that shall be between Christian and heathen in our country." So he said to me before his ship sailed with the morning tide.

And I had no words in which to answer him, for his going seemed to leave me friendless again, so much had we been at one together.
Almost had I taken up that journey to the Holy Land with him, but I thought that if it was a good and pious thing to go on that pilgrimage for myself, it was even more so to bide for the sake of king and country here in the land that should be holy for all of us who are English.

And when I said that to Olaf, he smiled brightly and answered: "If old Norway called for me, I would say the same.