And at the sound he put spurs to his horse and plunged into the wood.
Gloomy indeed was this forest of lonely pines, which rocked and groaned in the wind, and in which a dim twilight deepening often into black darkness reigned on every hand.

And gloomier still were those distant cries which rose ever and again above the tempest, and caused even the brave horse to shiver as he heard them.
But Sigurd shivered not, but rode forward, trusting in his God and listening only to that old-remembered voice ahead.
For a league the road was easy and the perils few.

For thus far the woodman's axe had often fallen amidst the thick underwood, clearing a path among the trees and driving before it the sullen wolves into the deeper recesses of the forest.
But as Sigurd rode on, and the boughs overhead closed in between him and the light of day, these few traces of man's hand vanished.
His good horse stumbled painfully over the tangled ground, often hardly finding himself a path among the dense trunks.

And all around, those wild yells which had mingled with the tempest seemed to draw closer, as though eagerly awaiting the horse and its rider somewhere not far off.
Sigurd heeded them not, but cheered himself as he rode on by calling to mind some of the beautiful stories of the old religion of his land.

He thought of the elves and fairies who were said to dwell in these very forests, and at midnight to creep up from their hiding-places and gambol and play tricks among the flowers and dewdrops with the wild bees and the summer insects, or dance in magic circles on the greensward.