To the boy's question she was kinder.

"Let the dead things be, prince," she said.

"There's small profit from foreknowledge.

Better to take fates as they come sudden round a turn of the road than be watching them with an anxious heart all the way down the hill.

The time will come soon enough when you must stand by the Howe of the Dead and call on the ghost-folk." But Leif coaxed and Biorn harped on the thing, as boys do, and one night about the midsummer time her hour came upon Katla and she spoke without their seeking.