Ottar had many sagas that told of the fires that burnt, unearthly, above buried heroes, and the Danes would watch for them, and so, as I have said, would certainly see them, or deem that they did so.

Yet I suppose that these strange fires may have burnt on the tombs of heathen men, else would not the tales have been told thereof so certainly.

But Christian warriors rest in peace, and about their last bed is no unquiet.

Nor may Christian folk be frighted by the bale fires of the long-ago heathen's mounds.

For their sakes they have been quenched, as I think.
So I stood and mused for a while, turning over in my mind how best to find Gunnhild at the mere without leading others to her hiding place.