He was also the most skilful fisher on our coasts, being by birth
a well-to-do freeman enough, and having boats of his own since he could
first sail one. At one time the jarl had made him steward of his house;
but the sea drew him ever, and he waxed restless away from it.
Therefore, after a time, he asked the jarl's leave to take to the sea
again, and so prospered in the fishery that at last he bought a large
trading buss from the Frisian coast, and took to the calling of the
merchant.
So for some years my father, stout warrior as he proved himself in many
a fight at his lord's side, traded peacefully---that is, so long as
men would suffer him to do so; for it happened more than once that his
ship was boarded by Vikings, who in the end went away, finding that they
had made a mistake in thinking that they had found a prize in a harmless
trader, for Grim was wont to man his ship with warriors, saying that
what was worth trading was worth keeping. I mind me how once he came to
England with a second cargo, won on the high seas from a Viking's
plunder, which the Viking brought alongside our ship, thinking to add
our goods thereto. Things went the other way, and we left him only an
empty ship, which maybe was more than he would have spared to us. That
was on my second voyage, when I was fifteen.
Mostly my father traded to England, for there are few of the Saxon kin
who take ship for themselves, and the havens to which he went were
Tetney and Saltfleet, on the Lindsey shore of Humber, where he soon had
friends.
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