Longing was not a foreign feeling to Hakon. He had lived with it his entire first year in Engla-lond with the persistent memory of his mother"s cooking, the warmth of her modest home, the comforting scent of her hair as she told bedtime stories of Northern gods. At night, he had closed his eyes to Athelstan"s dark hall and once again seen the glorious waterfalls that lined the fjords, and the majestic, snow-covered mountains to the east; smelled the salt of the sea as it blew in with the autumn winds; heard again the familiar cry of gulls and puffins above the crashing waves.
Now he was back among all those things he had missed so as a child, but time had dulled his former attachment to the land. His mother was dead, her comfort and stories gone with her. The Northern gods had long since
