What is a god? Is he not one greater than man, who must know all the weakness of man, which, for his own ends, he has bred into the flesh of man? How, then, can he do otherwise than be pitiful to what he has created? If this be so, how can the god refuse that which men are willing to grant, and what sacrifice can please him better than the foregoing of his own vengeance? Would a god wish to be outdone by a man? If I, Olaf, the man can forgive, who have been wronged, how much more can Odin the god forgive, who has suffered no wrong save that of the breaking of those laws which will ever be broken by men who are as it has pleased him to fashion them? On Odin's behalf, therefore, and speaking as he would speak, could he have voice among us, I demand that you set this victim free, leaving it to his own heart to punish him."
Now, some whom my simple words had touched, I suppose because there was truth in them, although in those days and in that land none understood such truths, and others, because they had known and loved the open-handed Steinar, who would have given the cloak from his back to the meanest of them, cried:
"Aye, let him go free. There has been enough of death through this Iduna."
But more stood silent, lost in doubt at this new doctrine. Only Leif, my uncle, did not stand silent. His dark face began to work as though a devil possessed him, as, indeed, I think one did. His eyes rolled; he champed his jaws like an angry hog, and screamed:
"Surely the lord Olaf is mad, for no sane man would talk thus. Man may forgive while it is within
