Swanhild began to shake like a tree in the gale, and her face grew the colour of smoke. And then finally: “I-am-content,” she said at last.
“Such a brave lady! So wise, so fair — so ‘content’! Ah, we two sisters shall be merry indeed!” the Familiar grinned.
“But hearken: if I aid thee thus, then I may do so no more. Thrice now I have come at thy call, but now it must wing away. Yet things will be as I have said and thine own wicked wisdom shall guide the rest. Now, draw nigh, sister-to-be, and give me thine arm so that blood may seal our bargain!”
Swanhild drew near the toad and, shuddering, stretched out her arm. Suddenly red blood flowed, their hands clasped and their future sisterhood was sealed! And as the dark deed was wrought, it seemed to Swanhild as though fire shot through her veins, and fire surged before her eyes, and in the fire a shape passed up weeping.
“It is done, Blood-sister!” croaked the Familiar; “But now I must take on thy form and be about thy tasks. Seat thee here before me —so. Now, press thy brow upon my brow — fear not, for it is thy mother’s face — both in life and death! Her dark, curling locks now corpse white!”
Their two bodies began to shimmer, blur and merge.
“See, Blood-sister! We change! We change! Now thou art the Death-toad and I am Swanhild, old Atli’s beautiful, young wife — she who shall soon be Eric’s greatest love!”
Then Swanhild knew that her beauty had entered into the foulness of the toad, and the foulness of the toad into her beauty, for there before her stood her own shape while she crouched a slime covered thing upon the cold stone floor.
“Away to work! Away!” said a soft, low voice — her voice speaking from her own body that now stood before her! And then it was gone.
But Swanhild still crouched in the shape of a hag-headed toad upon the stone floor in her bower in Atli’s hall — and felt the wickedness and evil longings and hate that boiled and seethed within her black heart. She looked out and saw strange sights.
She saw Atli, her aged husband, dead upon the grass.
She saw Eric standing over him, blood on his sword.
She saw her hated half-sister Gudruda’s hall red with blood.
She saw a great cliff near a mountain cave, and men fell down it.
And, last, she saw a war-ship sailing fast out on the sea, afire, and vanish there.
#
Now the toad/witch-hag who wore Swanhild’s loveliness stood upon the high cliffs by the storm-tossed sea and raised her white arms towards the north.
“Come, fog! Come, sleet! Come dark of night!” she cried. “Put out the moon and blind Eric’s sight!” And as she called, the fog rose up like a giant and stretched its arms from shore to shore.
“Move, fog! Beat, rain!” she cried. “Stride against the gale, and bring Eric’s ship to its bain!”
The fog moved against the wind, and with it went the sleet and rain — and far to the north a battered longship drove through the growing waves.
