His pulses flutter, the light of life still burns in his eyes, and though the blood runs from his ears, I think the skull is not broken." When she heard these words, Thora, my mother, whose heart was weak, fainted for joy, and my father, untwisting a gold ring from his arm, threw it to Freydisa.
"First the cure," she said, thrusting it away with her foot.

"Moreover, when I work for love I take no pay." Then they washed me, and, having dressed my hurts, laid me on a bed near the fire that warmth might come back to me.

But Freydisa would not suffer them to give me anything save a little hot milk which she poured down my throat.
For three days I lay like one dead; indeed, all save my mother held Freydisa wrong and thought that I was dead.

But on the fourth day I opened my eyes and took food, and after that fell into a natural sleep.

On the morning of the sixth day I sat up and spoke many wild and wandering words, so that they believed I should only live as a madman.
"His mind is gone," said my mother, and wept.
"Nay," answered Freydisa, "he does but return from a land where they speak another tongue.