'
"'Youth, no moment have I slumbered, but to prove thee feigned to
rest,
Unproved men and weapons never trusts King Ring without a test.
Thou art Frithjof. I have known thee since thou first cam'st to my
hall;
Much that thou hast hidden from me; from the first I guessed it
all.'"
Soon after this interview the aged king feels death approaching; and in
order not to go to the dark abode of Hela, he cuts death-runes upon his
breast and ascends to Odin's bright hall. But before dying he gives
Ingeborg to Frithjof, and makes him the guardian of his son. The people,
in _Thing_ assembled, glorying in Frithjof's great renown, desire,
however, to make him King's successor; but he lifts the small boy above
his head upon his shield and proclaims him king. He returns home and
rebuilds Balder's temple, whereupon the sentence of outlawry is removed,
and he is reconciled to Ingeborg's brothers and marries the beloved of
his youth.
The last canto, called "The Atonement," is perhaps the most flagrant
violation of historical verisimilitude in the whole epic.
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