Return to Book 6

BOOK SEVEN.

We are told by historians of old, that Ingild had four sons, ofwhom three perished in war, while OLAF alone reigned after hisfather; but some say that Olaf was the son of Ingild's sister,though this opinion is doubtful.  Posterity has but an uncertainknowledge of his deeds, which are dim with the dust of antiquity;nothing but the last counsel of his wisdom has been rescued bytradition.  For when he was in the last grip of death he tookthought for his sons FRODE and HARALD, and bade them have royalsway, one over the land and the other over the sea, and receivethese several powers, not in prolonged possession, but in yearlyrotation.  Thus their share in the rule was made equal; butFrode, who was the first to have control of the affairs of thesea, earned disgrace from his continual defeats in roving.  Hiscalamity was due to his sailors being newly married, andpreferring nuptial joys at home to the toils of foreign warfare.After a time Harald, the younger son, received the rule of thesea, and chose soldiers who were unmarried, fearing to be baffledlike his brother.  Fortune favoured his choice; for he was asglorious a rover as his brother was inglorious; and this earnedhim his brother's hatred.  Moreover, their queens, Signe andUlfhild, one of whom was the daughter of Siward, King of Sweden,the other of Karl, the governor of Gothland, were continuallywrangling as to which was the nobler, and broke up the mutualfellowship of their husbands.  Hence Harald and Frode, when theircommon household was thus shattered, divided up the goods theyheld in common, and gave more heed to the wrangling altercationsof the women than to the duties of brotherly affection.

Moreover, Frode, judging that his brother's glory was a disgraceto himself and brought him into contempt, ordered one of hishousehold to put him to death secretly; for he saw that the manof whom he had the advantage in years was surpassing him incourage.  When the deed was done, he had the agent of histreachery privily slain, lest the accomplice should betray thecrime.  Then, in order to gain the credit of innocence and escapethe brand of crime, he ordered a full inquiry to be made into themischance that had cut off his brother so suddenly.  But he couldnot manage, by all his arts, to escape silent condemnation in thethoughts of the common people.  He afterwards asked Karl, "Whohad killed Harald?" and Karl replied that it was deceitful in himto ask a question about something which he knew quite well. These words earned him his death; for Frode thought that he hadreproached him covertly with fratricide.

After this, the lives of Harald and Halfdan, the sons of Haraldby Signe the daughter of Karl, were attempted by their uncle. But the guardians devised a cunning method of saving their wards.For they cut off the claws of wolves and tied them to the solesof their feet; and then made them run along many times so as toharrow up the mud near their dwelling, as well as the ground(then covered with, snow), and give the appearance of an attackby wild beasts.  Then they killed the children of some bond-women, tore their bodies into little pieces, and scattered theirmangled limbs all about.  So when the youths were looked for invain, the scattered limbs were found, the tracks of the beastswere pointed out, and the ground was seen besmeared with blood.It was believed that the boys had been devoured by raveningwolves; and hardly anyone was suffered to doubt so plain a proofthat they were mangled.  The belief in this spectacle served toprotect the wards.  They were presently shut up by theirguardians in a hollow oak, so that no trace of their being aliveshould get abroad, and were fed for a long time under pretencethat they were dogs; and were even called by hounds' names, toprevent any belief getting abroad that they were hiding. (1)

Frode alone refused to believe in their death; and he went andinquired of a woman skilled in divination where they were hid. So potent were her spells, that she seemed able, at any distance,to perceive anything, however intricately locked away, and tosummon it out to light.  She declared that one Ragnar hadsecretly undertaken to rear them, and had called them by thenames of dogs to cover the matter.  When the young men foundthemselves dragged from their hiding by the awful force of herspells, and brought before the eyes of the enchantress, loth tobe betrayed by this terrible and imperious compulsion, they flunginto her lap a shower of gold which they had received from theirguardians.  When she had taken the gift, she suddenly feigneddeath, and fell like one lifeless.  Her servants asked the reasonwhy she fell so suddenly; and she declared that the refuge of thesons of Harald was inscrutable; for their wondrous mightqualified even the most awful effects of her spells.  Thus shewas content with a slight benefit, and could not bear to await agreater reward at the king's hands.  After this Ragnar, findingthat the belief concerning himself and his wards was becomingrife in common talk, took them, both away into Funen.  Here hewas taken by Frode, and confessed that he had put the young menin safe keeping; and he prayed the king to spare the wards whomhe had made fatherless, and not to think it a piece of goodfortune to be guilty of two unnatural murders.  By this speech hechanged the king's cruelty into shame; and he promised that ifthey attempted any plots in their own land, he would giveinformation to the king.  Thus he gained safety for his wards,and lived many years in freedom from terror.

When the boys grew up, they went to Zealand, and were bidden bytheir friends to avenge their father.  They vowed that they andtheir uncle should not both live out the year.  When Ragnar foundthis out, he went by night to the palace, prompted by therecollection of his covenant, and announced that he was comeprivily to tell the king something he had promised.  But the kingwas asleep, and he would not suffer them to wake him up, becauseFrode had been used to punish any disturbance of his rest withthe sword.  So mighty a matter was it thought of old to break theslumbers of a king by untimely intrusion.  Frode heard this fromthe sentries in the morning; and when he perceived that Ragnarhad come to tell him of the treachery, he gathered together hissoldiers, and resolved to forestall deceit by ruthless measures.Harald's sons had no help for it but to feign madness.  For whenthey found themselves suddenly attacked, they began to behavelike maniacs, as if they were distraught.  And when Frode thoughtthat they were possessed, he gave up his purpose, thinking itshameful to attack with the sword those who seemed to be turningthe sword against themselves.  But he was burned to death by themon the following night, and was punished as befitted afratricide.  For they attacked the palace, and first crushing thequeen with a mass of stones and then, having set fire to thehouse, they forced Frode to crawl into a narrow cave that hadbeen cut out long before, and into the dark recesses of tunnels.Here he lurked in hiding and perished, stifled by the reek andsmoke.

After Frode was killed, HALFDAN reigned over his country aboutthree years, and then, handing over his sovereignty to hisbrother Harald as deputy, went roving, and attacked and ravagedOland and the neighbouring isles, which are severed from contactwith Sweden by a winding sound.  Here in the winter he beachedand entrenched his ships, and spent three years on theexpedition.  After this he attacked Sweden, and destroyed itsking in the field.  Afterwards he prepared to meet the king'sgrandson Erik, the son of his own uncle Frode, in battle; andwhen he heard that Erik's champion, Hakon, was skillful inblunting swords with his spells, he fashioned, to use forclubbing, a huge mace studded with iron knobs, as if he wouldprevail by the strength of wood over the power of sorcery.  Then-- for he was conspicuous beyond all others for his bravery --amid the hottest charges of the enemy, he covered his head withhis helmet, and, without a shield, poised his club, and with thehelp of both hands whirled it against the bulwark of shieldsbefore him.  No obstacle was so stout but it was crushed topieces by the blow of the mass that smote it.  Thus he overthrewthe champion, who ran against him in the battle, with a violentstroke of his weapon.  But he was conquered notwithstanding, andfled away into Helsingland, where he went to one Witolf (who hadserved of old with Harald), to seek tendance for his wounds. This man had spent most of his life in camp; but at last, afterthe grievous end of his general, he had retreated into thislonely district, where he lived the life of a peasant, and restedfrom the pursuits of war.  Often struck himself by the missilesof the enemy, he had gained no slight skill in leechcraft byconstantly tending his own wounds.  But if anyone came withflatteries to seek his aid, instead of curing him he wasaccustomed to give him something that would secretly injure him,thinking it somewhat nobler to threaten than to wheedle forbenefits.  When the soldiers of Erik menaced his house, in theirdesire to take Halfdan, he so robbed them of the power of sightthat they could neither perceive the house nor trace it withcertainty, though it was close to them.  So utterly had theireyesight been dulled by a decisive mist.

When Halfdan had by this man's help regained his full strength,he summoned Thore, a champion of notable capacity, and proclaimedwar against Erik.  But when the forces were led out on the otherside, and he saw that Erik was superior in numbers, he hid a partof his army, and instructed it to lie in ambush among the bushesby the wayside, in order to destroy the enemy by an ambuscade ashe marched through the narrow part of the path.  Erik foresawthis, having reconnoitred his means of advancing, and thought hemust withdraw for fear, if he advanced along the track he hadintended, of being hard-pressed by the tricks of the enemy amongthe steep windings of the hills.  They therefore joined battle,force against force, in a deep valley, inclosed all round bylofty mountain ridges.  Here Halfdan, when he saw the line of hismen wavering, climbed with Thore up a crag covered with stonesand, uprooting boulders, rolled them down upon the enemy below;and the weight of these as they fell crushed the line that wasdrawn up in the lower position.  Thus he regained with stones thevictory which he had lost with arms.  For this deed of prowess hereceived the name of Biargramm ("rock strong"), a word whichseems to have been compounded from the name of his fierceness andof the mountains.  He soon gained so much esteem for this amongthe Swedes that he was thought to be the son of the great Thor,and the people bestowed divine honours upon him, and judged himworthy of public libation.

But the souls of the conquered find it hard to rest, and theinsolence of the beaten ever struggles towards the forbiddenthing.  So it came to pass that Erik, in his desire to repair thelosses incurred in flight, attacked the districts subject toHalfdan.  Even Denmark he did not exempt from this harshtreatment; for he thought it a most worthy deed to assail thecountry of the man who had caused him to be driven from his own.And so, being more anxious to inflict injury than to repel it, heset Sweden free from the arms of the enemy.  When Halfdan heardthat his brother Harald had been beaten by Erik in three battles,and slain in the fourth, he was afraid of losing his empire; hehad to quit the land of the Swedes and go back to his owncountry.  Thus Erik regained the kingdom of Sweden all the morequickly, that he quitted it so lightly.  Had fortune wished tofavour him in keeping his kingdom as much as she had in regainingit, she would in nowise have given him into the hand of Halfdan.This capture was made in the following way: When Halfdan had goneback into Sweden, he hid his fleet craftily, and went to meetErik with two vessels.  Erik attacked him with ten; and Halfdan,sailing through sundry winding channels, stole back to hisconcealed forces.  Erik pursued him too far, and the Danish fleetcame out on the sea.  Thus Erik was surrounded; but he rejectedthe life, which was offered him under condition of thraldom.  Hecould not bear to think more of the light of day than liberty,and chose to die rather than serve; lest he should seem to lovelife so well as to turn from a slave into a freeman; and that hemight not court with new-born obeisance the man whom fortune hadjust before made only his equal.  So little knows virtue how tobuy life with dishonour.  Wherefore he was put in chains, andbanished to a place haunted by wild beasts; an end unworthy ofthat lofty spirit.

Halfdan had thus become sovereign of both kingdoms, and gracedhis fame with a triple degree of honour.  For he was skillful andeloquent in composing poems in the fashion of his country; and hewas no less notable as a valorous champion than as a powerfulking.  But when he heard that two active rovers, Toke and Anund,were threatening the surrounding districts, he attacked androuted them in a sea-fight.  For the ancients thought thatnothing was more desirable than glory which was gained, not bybrilliancy of wealth, but by address in arms.  Accordingly, themost famous men of old were so minded as to love seditions, torenew quarrels, to loathe ease, to prefer fighting to peace, tobe rated by their valour and not by their wealth, to find theirgreatest delight in battles, and their least in banquetings.

But Halfdan was not long to seek for a rival.  A certain Siwald,of most illustrious birth, related with lamentation in theassembly of the Swedes the death of Frode and his queen; andinspired in almost all of them such a hatred of Halfdan, that thevote of the majority granted him permission to revolt.  Nor washe content with the mere goodwill of their voices, but so won theheart of the commons by his crafty canvassing that he inducedalmost all of them to set with their hands the royal emblem onhis head.  Siwald had seven sons, who were such clever sorcerersthat often, inspired with the force of sudden frenzy, they wouldroar savagely, bite their shields, swallow hot coals, and gothrough any fire that could be piled up; and their franticpassion could only be checked by the rigour of chains, orpropitiated by slaughter of men.  With such a frenzy did theirown sanguinary temper, or else the fury of demons, inspire them.

When Halfdan had heard of these things while busy roving, he saidit was right that his soldiers, who had hitherto spent their rageupon foreigners, should now smite with the steel the flesh oftheir own countrymen, and that they who had been used to labourto extend their realm should now avenge its wrongful seizure.  OnHalfdan approaching, Siwald sent him ambassadors and requestedhim, if he was as great in act as in renown, to meet himself andhis sons in single combat, and save the general peril by his own.When the other answered, that a combat could not lawfully befought by more than two men, Siwald said, that it was no wonderthat a childless bachelor should refuse the proffered conflict,since his nature was void of heat, and had struck a disgracefulfrost into his soul and body.  Children, he added, were notdifferent from the man who begot them, since they drew from himtheir common principle of birth.  Thus he and his sons were to beaccounted as one person, for nature seemed in a manner to havebestowed on them a single body.  Halfdan, stung with thisshameful affront, accepted the challenge; meaning to wipe outwith noble deeds of valour such an insulting taunt upon hiscelibacy.  And while he chanced to be walking through a shadywoodland, he plucked up by the roots all oak that stuck in hispath, and, by simply stripping it of its branches, made it looklike a stout club.  Having this trusty weapon, he composed ashort song as follows:

"Behold!  The rough burden which I bear with straining crest,shall unto crests bring wounds and destruction.  Never shall anyweapon of leafy wood crush the Goths with direr augury.  It shallshatter the towering strength of the knotty neck, and shallbruise the hollow temples with the mass of timber.  The clubwhich shall quell the wild madness of the land shall be no lessfatal to the Swedes.  Breaking bones, and brandished about themangled limbs of warriors, the stock I have wrenched off shallcrush the backs of the wicked, crush the hearths of our kindred,shed the blood of our countrymen, and be a destructive pest uponour land."

When he had said this, he attacked Siwald and his seven sons, anddestroyed them, their force and bravery being useless against theenormous mass of his club.

At this time one Hardbeen, who came from Helsingland, gloried inkidnapping and ravishing princesses, and used to kill any man whohindered him in his lusts.  He preferred high matches to thosethat were lowly; and the more illustrious the victims he couldviolate, the more noble he thought himself.  No man escapedunpunished who durst measure himself with Hardbeen in valour.  Hewas so huge, that his stature reached the measure of nine ells.He had twelve champions dwelling with him, whose business it wasto rise up and to restrain his fury with the aid of bonds,whenever the rage came on him that foreboded of battle.  Thesemen asked Halfdan to attack Hardbeen and his champions man byman; and he not only promised to fight, but assured himself thevictory with most confident words.  When Hardbeen heard this, ademoniacal frenzy suddenly took him; he furiously bit anddevoured the edges of his shield; he kept gulping down fierycoals; he snatched live embers in his mouth and let them passdown into his entrails; he rushed through the perils of cracklingfires; and at last, when he had raved through every sort ofmadness, he turned his sword with raging hand against the heartsof six of his champions.  It is doubtful whether this madnesscame from thirst for battle or natural ferocity.  Then with theremaining band of his champions he attacked Halfdan, who crushedhim with a hammer of wondrous size, so that he lost both victoryand life; paying the penalty both to Halfdan, whom he hadchallenged, and to the kings whose offspring he had violentlyravished.

Fortune never seemed satisfied with the trying of Halfdan'sstrength, and used to offer him unexpected occasions forfighting.  It so happened that Egther, a Finlander, was harryingthe Swedes on a roving raid.  Halfdan, having found that he hadthree ships, attacked him with the same number.  Night closed thebattle, so that he could not conquer him; but he challengedEgther next day, fought with and overthrew him.  He next heardthat Grim, a champion of immense strength, was suing, underthreats of a duel, for Thorhild, the daughter of the chiefHather, and that her father had proclaimed that he who put thechampion out of the way should have her.  Halfdan, though he hadreached old age a bachelor, was stirred by the promise of thechief as much as by the insolence of the champion, and went toNorway.  When he entered it, he blotted out every mark by whichhe could be recognized, disguising his face with splashes ofdirt; and when he came to the spot of the battle, drew his swordfirst.  And when he knew that it had been blunted by the glanceof the enemy, he cast it on the ground, drew another from thesheath, with which he attacked Grim, cutting through the mesheson the edge of his cuirass, as well as the lower part of hisshield.  Grim wondered at the deed, and said, "I cannot rememberan old man who fought more keenly;" and, instantly drawing hissword, he pierced through and shattered the target that wasopposed to his blade.  But as his right arm tarried on thestroke, Halfdan, without wavering, met and smote it swiftly withhis sword.  The other, notwithstanding, clasped his sword withhis left hand, and cut through the thigh of the striker,revenging the mangling of his own body with a slight wound.Halfdan, now conqueror, allowed the conquered man to ransom theremnant of his life with a sum of money; he would not be thoughtshamefully to rob a maimed man, who could not fight, of thepitiful remainder of his days.  By this deed he showed himselfalmost as great in saving as in conquering his enemy.  As a prizefor this victory he won Thorhild in marriage, and had by her ason Asmund, from whom the kings of Norway treasure the honour ofbeing descended; retracing the regular succession of their linedown from Halfdan.

After this, Ebbe, a rover of common birth, was so confident ofhis valour, that he was moved to aspire to a splendid marriage.He was a suitor for Sigrid, the daughter of Yngwin, King of theGoths, and moreover demanded half the Gothic kingdom for herdowry.  Halfdan was consulted whether the match should beentertained, and advised that a feigned consent should be given,promising that he would baulk the marriage.  He also gaveinstructions that a seat should be allotted to himself among theplaces of the guests at table.  Yngwin approved the advice; andHalfdan, utterly defacing the dignity of his royal presence withan unsightly and alien disguise, and coming by night on thewedding feast, alarmed those who met him; for they marvelled atthe coming of a man of such superhuman stature.

When Halfdan entered the palace, he looked round on all andasked, who was he that had taken the place next to the king? Upon Ebbe replying that the future son-in-law of the king wasnext to his side, Halfdan asked him, in the most passionatelanguage, what madness, or what demons, had brought him to suchwantonness, as to make bold to unite his contemptible and filthyrace with a splendid and illustrious line, or to dare to lay hispeasant finger upon the royal family: and, not content even withsuch a claim, to aspire, as it seemed, to a share even in thekingdom of another.  Then he bade Ebbe fight him, saying that hemust get the victory before he got his wish.  The other answeredthat the night was the time to fight with monsters, but the daythe time with men; but Halfdan, to prevent him shirking thebattle by pleading the hour, declared that the moon was shiningwith the brightness of daylight.  Thus he forced Ebbe to fight,and felled him, turning the banquet into a spectacle, and thewedding into a funeral.

Some years passed, and Halfdan went back to his own country, andbeing childless he bequeathed the royal wealth by will to Yngwin,and appointed him king. YNGWIN was afterwards overthrown in warby a rival named Ragnald, and he left a son SIWALD.

Siwald's daughter, Sigrid, was of such excellent modesty, thatthough a great concourse of suitors wooed her for her beauty, itseemed as if she could not be brought to look at one of them.Confident in this power of self-restraint, she asked her fatherfor a husband who by the sweetness of his blandishments should beable to get a look back from her.  For in old time among us theself-restraint of the maidens was a great subduer of wantonlooks, lest the soundness of the soul should be infected by thelicence of the eyes; and women desired to avouch the purity oftheir hearts by the modesty of their faces.  Then one Ottar, theson of Ebb, kindled with confidence in the greatness either ofhis own achievements, or of his courtesy and eloquent address,stubbornly and ardently desired to woo the maiden.  And though hestrove with all the force of his wit to soften her gaze, nodevice whatever could move her downcast eyes; and, marvelling ather persistence in her indomitable rigour, he departed.

A giant desired the same thing, but, finding himself equallyfoiled, he suborned a woman; and she, pretending friendship forthe girl, served her for a while as her handmaid, and at lastenticed her far from her father's house, by cunningly going outof the way; then the giant rushed upon her and bore her off intothe closest fastnesses of a ledge on the mountain.  Others thinkthat he disguised himself as a woman, treacherously continued hisdevices so as to draw the girl away from her own house, and inthe end carried her off.  When Ottar heard of this, he ransackedthe recesses of the mountain in search of the maiden, found her,slew the giant, and bore her off.  But the assiduous giant hadbound back the locks of the maiden, tightly twisting her hair insuch a way that the matted mass of tresses was held in a kind ofcurled bundle; nor was it easy for anyone to unravel theirplaited tangle, without using the steel.  Again, he tried withdivers allurements to provoke the maiden to look at him; and whenhe had long laid vain siege to her listless eyes, he abandonedhis quest, since his purpose turned out so little to his liking.But he could not bring himself to violate the girl, loth todefile with ignoble intercourse one of illustrious birth.  Shethen wandered long, and sped through divers desert and circuitouspaths, and happened to come to the hut of a certain huge woman ofthe woods, who set her to the task of pasturing her goats.  AgainOttar granted her his aid to set her free, and again he tried tomove her, addressing her in this fashion: "Wouldst thou ratherhearken to my counsels, and embrace me even as I desire, than behere and tend the flock of rank goats?

"Spurn the hand of thy wicked mistress, and flee hastily fromthy cruel taskmistress, that thou mayst go back with me to theships of thy friends and live in freedom.

"Quit the care of the sheep entrusted to thee; scorn to drive thesteps of the goats; share my bed, and fitly reward my prayers.

"O thou whom I have sought with such pains, turn again thylistless beams; for a little while -- it is an easy gesture --lift thy modest face.

"I will take thee hence, and set thee by the house of thy father,and unite thee joyfully with thy loving mother, if but once thouwilt show me thine eyes stirred with soft desires.

"Thou, whom I have borne so oft from the prisons of the giants,pay thou some due favour to my toil of old; pity my hardendeavours, and be stern no more.

"For why art thou become so distraught and brainsick, that thouwilt choose to tend the flock of another, and be counted amongthe servants of monsters, sooner than encourage our marriage-troth with fitting and equal consent?"

But she, that she might not suffer the constancy of her chastemind to falter by looking at the world without, restrained hergaze, keeping her lids immovably rigid.  How modest, then, mustwe think, were the women of that age, when, under the strongestprovocations of their lovers, they could not be brought to makethe slightest motion of their eyes!  So when Ottar found thateven by the merits of his double service he could not stir themaiden's gaze towards him, he went back to the fleet, wearied outwith shame and chagrin.  Sigrid, in her old fashion, ran far awayover the rocks, and chanced to stray in her wanderings to theabode of Ebb; where, ashamed of her nakedness and distress, shepretended to be a daughter of paupers.  The mother of Ottar sawthat this woman, though bestained and faded, and covered with ameagre cloak, was the scion of some noble stock; and took her,and with honourable courtesy kept her by her side in adistinguished seat.  For the beauty of the maiden was a sign thatbetrayed her birth, and her telltale features echoed her lineage.Ottar saw her, and asked why she hid her face in her robe.  Also,in order to test her mind more surely, he feigned that a womanwas about to become his wife, and, as he went up into the bride-bed, gave Sigrid the torch to hold.  The lights had almost burntdown, and she was hard put to it by the flame coming closer; butshe showed such an example of endurance that she was seen to holdher hand motionless, and might have been thought to feel noannoyance from the heat.  For the fire within mastered the firewithout, and the glow of her longing soul deadened the burn ofher scorched skin.  At last Ottar bade her look to her hand.Then, modestly lifting her eyes, she turned her calm gaze uponhim; and straightway, the pretended marriage being put away, wentup unto the bride-bed to be his wife.  Siwald afterwards seizedOttar, and thought that he ought to be hanged for defiling hisdaughter.

But Sigrid at once explained how she had happened to be carriedaway, and not only brought Ottar back into the king's favour, butalso induced her father himself to marry Ottar's sister.  Afterthis a battle was fought between Siwald and Ragnald in Zealand,warriors of picked valour being chosen on both sides.  For threedays they slaughtered one another; but so great was the braveryof both sides, that it was doubtful how the victory would go.Then Ottar, whether seized with weariness at the prolongedbattle, or with desire of glory, broke, despising death, throughthe thickest of the foe, cut down Ragnald among the bravest ofhis soldiers, and won the Danes a sudden victory.  This battlewas notable for the cowardice of the greatest nobles.  For thewhole mass fell into such a panic, that forty of the bravest ofthe Swedes are said to have turned and fled.  The chief of these,Starkad, had been used to tremble at no fortune, however cruel,and no danger, however great.  But some strange terror stole uponhim, and he chose to follow the flight of his friends rather thanto despise it.  I should think that he was filled with this alarmby the power of heaven, that he might not think himselfcourageous beyond the measure of human valour.  Thus theprosperity of mankind is wont ever to be incomplete.  Then allthese warriors embraced the service of King Hakon, the mightiestof the rovers, like remnants of the war drifting to him.

After this Siwald was succeeded by his son SIGAR, who had sonsSiwald, Alf, and Alger, and a daughter Signe.  All excelled therest in spirit and beauty, and devoted himself to the business ofa rover.  Such a grace was shed on his hair, which had awonderful dazzling glow, that his locks seemed to shine silvery.At the same time Siward, the king of the Goths, is said to havehad two sons, Wemund and Osten, and a daughter Alfhild, whoshowed almost from her cradle such faithfulness to modesty thatshe continually kept her face muffled in her robe, lest sheshould cause her beauty to provoke the passion of another.  Herfather banished her into very close keeping, and gave her a viperand a snake to rear, wishing to defend her chastity by theprotection of these reptiles when they came to grow up.  For itwould have been hard to pry into her chamber when it was barredby so dangerous a bolt.  He also enacted that if any man tried toenter it, and failed, he must straightway yield his head to betaken off and impaled on a stake.  The terror which was thusattached to wantonness chastened the heated spirits of the youngmen.

Alf, the son of Sigar, thinking that peril of the attempt onlymade it nobler, declared himself a wooer, and went to subdue thebeasts that kept watch beside the room of the maiden; inasmuchas, according to the decree, the embraces of the maiden were theprize of their subduer.  Alf covered his body with a blood-stained hide in order to make them more frantic against him. Girt with this, as soon as he had entered the doors of theenclosure, he took a piece of red-hot steel in the tongs, andplunged it into the yawning throat of the viper, which he laiddead.  Then he flung his spear full into the gaping mouth of thesnake as it wound and writhed forward, and destroyed it.  Andwhen he demanded the gage which was attached to victory by theterms of the covenant, Siward answered that he would accept thatman only for his daughter's husband of whom she made a free anddecided choice.  None but the girl's mother was stiff against thewooer's suit; and she privately spoke to her daughter in order tosearch her mind.  The daughter warmly praised her suitor for hisvalour; whereon the mother upbraided her sharply, that herchastity should be unstrung, and she be captivated by charminglooks; and because, forgetting to judge his virtue, she cast thegaze of a wanton mind upon the flattering lures of beauty.  ThusAlfhild was led to despise the young Dane; whereupon sheexchanged woman's for man's attire, and, no longer the mostmodest of maidens, began the life of a warlike rover.

Enrolling in her service many maidens who were of the same mind,she happened to come to a spot where a band of rovers werelamenting the death of their captain, who had been lost in war;they made her their rover captain for her beauty, and she diddeeds beyond the valour of woman.  Alf made many toilsome voyagesin pursuit of her, and in winter happened to come on a fleet ofthe Blacmen.  The waters were at this time frozen hard, and theships were caught in such a mass of ice that they could not geton by the most violent rowing.  But the continued frost promisedthe prisoners a safer way of advance; and Alf ordered his men totry the frozen surface of the sea in their brogues, after theyhad taken off their slippery shoes, so that they could run overthe level ice more steadily.  The Blacmen supposed that they weretaking to flight with all the nimbleness of their heels, andbegan to fight them, but their steps tottered exceedingly andthey gave back, the slippery surface under their soles makingtheir footing uncertain.  But the Danes crossed the frozen seawith safer steps, and foiled the feeble advance of the enemy,whom they conquered, and then turned and sailed to Finland.  Herethey chanced to enter a rather narrow gulf, and, on sending a fewmen to reconnoitre, they learnt that the harbour was being heldby a few ships.  For Alfhild had gone before them with her fleetinto the same narrows.  And when she saw the strange ships afaroff, she rowed in swift haste forward to encounter them, thinkingit better to attack the foe than to await them.  Alf's men wereagainst attacking so many ships with so few; but he replied thatit would be shameful if anyone should report to Alfhild that hisdesire to advance could be checked by a few ships in the path;for he said that their record of honours ought not to betarnished by such a trifle.

The Danes wondered whence their enemies got such grace of bodilybeauty and such supple limbs.  So, when they began the sea-fight,the young man Alf leapt on Alfhild's prow, and advanced towardsthe stern, slaughtering all that withstood him.  His comradeBorgar struck off Alfhild's helmet, and, seeing the smoothness ofher chin, saw that he must fight with kisses and not with arms;that the cruel spears must be put away, and the enemy handledwith gentler dealings.  So Alf rejoiced that the woman whom hehad sought over land and sea in the face of so many dangers wasnow beyond all expectation in his power; whereupon he took holdof her eagerly, and made her change her man's apparel for awoman's; and afterwards begot on her a daughter, Gurid.  AlsoBorgar wedded the attendant of Alfhild, Groa, and had by her ason, Harald, to whom the following age gave the surnameHyldeland.

And that no one may wonder that this sex laboured at warfare, Iwill make a brief digression, in order to give a short account ofthe estate and character of such women.  There were once womenamong the Danes who dressed themselves to look like men, anddevoted almost every instant of their lives to the pursuit ofwar, that they might not suffer their valour to be unstrung ordulled by the infection of luxury.  For they abhorred all daintyliving, and used to harden their minds and bodies with toil andendurance.  They put away all the softness and lightmindedness ofwomen, and inured their womanish spirit to masculineruthlessness.  They sought, moreover, so zealously to be skilledin warfare, that they might have been thought to have unsexedthemselves.  Those especially, who had either force of characteror tall and comely persons, used to enter on this kind of life.These women, therefore (just as if they had forgotten theirnatural estate, and preferred sternness to soft words), offeredwar rather than kisses, and would rather taste blood than busses,and went about the business of arms more than that of amours.  They devoted those hands to the lance which they should ratherhave applied to the loom.  They assailed men with their spearswhom they could have melted with their looks, they thought ofdeath and not of dalliance.  Now I will cease to wander, and willgo back to my theme.

In the early spring, Alf and Alger, who had gone back to sea-roving, were exploring the sea in various directions, when theylighted with a hundred ships upon Helwin, Hagbard, and Hamund,sons of the kinglet Hamund.  These they attacked and only thetwilight stayed their blood-wearied hands; and in the night thesoldiers were ordered to keep truce.  On the morrow this wasratified for good by a mutual oath; for such loss had beensuffered on both sides in the battle of the day before that theyhad no force left to fight again.  Thus, exhausted bye quality ofvalour, they were driven perforce to make peace.  About the sametime Hildigisl, a Teuton Of noble birth, relying on his looks andhis rank, sued for Signe, the daughter of Sigar.  But she scornedhim, chiefly for his insignificance, inasmuch as he was notbrave, but wished to adorn his fortunes with the courage of otherpeople.  But this woman was inclined to love Hakon, chiefly forthe high renown of his great deeds.  For she thought more of thebrave than the feeble; she admired notable deeds more than looks,knowing that every allurement of beauty is mere dross whenreckoned against simple valour, and cannot weigh equal with it inthe balance.  For there are maids that are more charmed by thefame than by the face of their lovers; who go not by the looks,but by the mind, and whom naught but regard for a man's spiritcan kindle to pledge their own troth.  Now Hagbard, going toDenmark with the sons of Sigar, gained speech of their sisterwithout their knowledge, and in the end induced her to pledge herword to him that she would secretly become his mistress.Afterwards, when the waiting-women happened to be comparing thehonourable deeds of the nobles, she preferred Hakon to Hildigisl,declaring that the latter had nothing to praise but his looks,while in the case of the other a wrinkled visage was outweighedby a choice spirit.  Not content with this plain kind of praise,she is said to have sung as follows:

"This man lacks fairness, but shines with foremost courage,measuring his features by his force.

"For the lofty soul redeems the shortcoming of harsh looks, andconquers the body's blemish.

"His look flashes with spirit, his face, notable in its veryharshness, delights in fierceness.

"He who strictly judges character praises not the mind for thefair hue, but rather the complexion for the mind.

"This man is not prized for beauty, but for brave daring and war-won honour.

"While the other is commended by his comely head and radiantcountenance and crest of lustrous locks.

"Vile is the empty grace of beauty, self-confounded the deceptivepride of comeliness.

"Valour and looks are swayed by different inclinations: one lastson, the other perishes.

"Empty red and white brings in vice, and is frittered away littleby little by the lightly gliding years;

"But courage plants firmer the hearts devoted to it, and does notslip and straightway fall.

"The voice of the multitude is beguiled by outward good, andforsakes the rule of right;

"But I praise virtue at a higher rate, and scorn the grace ofcomeliness."

This utterance fell on the ears of the bystanders in such a way,that they thought she praised Hagbard under the name of Hakon.And Hildigisl, vexed that she preferred Hagbard to himself,bribed a certain blind man, Bolwis, to bring the sons of Sigarand the sons of Hamund to turn their friendship into hatred.  ForKing Sigar had been used to transact almost all affairs by theadvice of two old men, one of whom was Bolwis.  The temper ofthese two men was so different, that one used to reconcile folkwho were at feud, while the other loved to sunder in hatred thosewho were bound by friendship, and by estranging folk to fanpestilent quarrels.

So Bolwis began by reviling the sons of Hamund to the sons ofSigar, in lying slanders, declaring that they never used topreserve the bonds of fellowship loyally, and that they must berestrained by war rather than by league.  Thus the alliance ofthe young men was broken through; and while Hagbard was far away,the sons of Sigar, Alf and Alger, made an attack, and Helwin andHamund were destroyed by the harbour which is called Hamund'sBay.  Hagbard then came up with fresh forces to avenge hisbrothers, and destroyed them in battle.  Hildigisl slunk off witha spear through both buttocks, which was the occasion for a jeerat the Teutons, since the ugliness of the blow did not fail tobrand it with disgrace.

Afterwards Hagbard dressed himself in woman's attire, and, asthough he had not wronged Sigar's daughter by slaying herbrothers, went back to her alone, trusting in the promise he hadfrom her, and feeling more safe in her loyalty than alarmed byreason of his own misdeed.  Thus does lust despise peril.  And,not to lack a pretext for his journey, he gave himself out as afighting-maid of Hakon, saying that he took an embassy from himto Sigar.  And when he was taken to bed at night among thehandmaids, and the woman who washed his feet were wiping them,they asked him why he had such hairy legs, and why his hands werenot at all soft to touch, he answered:

"What wonder that the soft hollow of my foot should harden, andthat long hairs should stay on my shaggy leg, when the sand hasso often smitten my soles beneath, and the briars have caught mein mid-step?

"Now I scour the forest with leaping, now the waters withrunning.  Now the sea, now the earth, now the wave is my path.

"Nor could my breast, shut in bonds of steel, and wont to bebeaten with lance and missile, ever have been soft to the touch,as with you who are covered by the mantle or the smooth gown.

"Not the distaff or the wool-frails, but spears dripping from theslaughter, have served for our handling."

Signe did not hesitate to back up his words with likedissembling, and replied that it was natural that hands whichdealt more in wounds than wools, and in battle than in tasks ofthe house should show the hardness that befitted their service;and that, unenfeebled with the pliable softness of women, theyshould not feel smooth to the touch of others.  For they werehardened partly by the toils of war, partly by the habit ofseafaring.  For, said she, the warlike handmaid of Hakon did notdeal in woman's business, but had been wont to bring her righthand blood-stained with hurling spears and flinging missiles.  Itwas no wonder, therefore, if her soles were hardened by theimmense journeys she had gone; and that, when the shores she hadscoured so often had bruised them with their rough and brokenshingle, they should toughen in a horny stiffness, and should notfeel soft to the touch like theirs, whose steps never strayed,but who were forever cooped within the confines of the palace.Hagbard received her as his bedfellow, under plea that he was tohave the couch of honour; and, amid their converse of mutualdelight, he addressed her slowly in such words as these:

"If thy father takes me and gives me to bitter death, wilt thouever, when I am dead, forget so strong a troth, and again seekthe marriage-plight?

"For if the chance should fall that way, I can hope for no roomfor pardon; nor will the father who is to avenge his sons spareor have pity.

"For I stripped thy brothers of their power on the sea and slewthem; and now, unknown to thy father, as though I had done naughtbefore counter to his will, I hold thee in the couch we share.

"Say, then, my one love, what manner of wish wilt thou show whenthou lackest the accustomed embrace?"

Signe answered:

"Trust me, dear; I wish to die with thee, if fate brings thy turnto perish first, and not to prolong my span of life at all, whenonce dismal death has cast thee to the tomb.

"For if thou chance to close thy eyes for ever, a victim to themaddened attack of the men-at-arms; -- by whatsoever doom thybreath be cut off, by sword or disease, by sea or soil, Iforswear every wanton and corrupt flame, and vow myself to adeath like thine; that they who were bound by one marriage-unionmay be embraced in one and the same punishment.  Nor will I quitthis man, though I am to feel the pains of death; I have resolvedhe is worthy of my love who gathered the first kisses of mymouth, and had the first fruits of my delicate youth.  I thinkthat no vow will be surer than this, if speech of woman have anyloyalty at all."

This speech so quickened the spirit of Hagbard, that he foundmore pleasure in her promise than peril in his own going away (tohis death).  The serving-women betrayed him; and when Sigar'smen-at-arms attacked him, he defended himself long andstubbornly, and slew many of them in the doorway.  But at last hewas taken, and brought before the assembly, and found the voicesof the people divided over him.  For very many said that heshould be punished for so great an offence; but Bilwis, thebrother of Bolwis, and others, conceived a better judgment, andadvised that it would be better to use his stout service than todeal with him too ruthlessly.  Then Bolwis came forward anddeclared that it was evil advice which urged the king to pardonwhen he ought to take vengeance, and to soften with unworthycompassion his righteous impulse to anger.  For how could Sigar,in the case of this man, feel any desire to spare or pity him,when he had not only robbed him of the double comfort of hissons, but had also bestained him with the insult of defloweringhis daughter?  The greater part of the assembly voted for thisopinion; Hagbard was condemned, and a gallows-tree planted toreceive him.  Hence it came about that he who at first had hardlyone sinister voice against him was punished with generalharshness.  Soon after the queen handed him a cup, and, biddinghim assuage his thirst, vexed him with threats after this manner:

"Now, insolent Hagbard, whom the whole assembly has pronouncedworthy of death, now to quench thy thirst thou shalt give thylips liquor to drink in a cup of horn.

"Wherefore cast away fear, and, at this last hour of thy life,taste with bold lips the deadly goblet;

"That, having drunk it, thou mayst presently land by thedwellings of those below, passing into the sequestered palace ofstern Dis, giving thy body to the gibbet and thy spirit toOrcus."

Then the young man took the cup offered him, and is said to havemade answer as follows:

"With this hand, wherewith I cut off thy twin sons, I will takemy last taste, yea the draught of the last drink.

"Now not unavenged shall I go to the Elysian regions, notunchastising to the stern ghosts.  For these men have first beenshut in the dens of Tartarus by a slaughter wrought by myendeavours.  This right hand was wet with blood that was yours,this hand robbed thy children of the years of their youth,children whom thy womb brought to light; but the deadly swordspared it not then.  Infamous woman, raving in spirit, hapless,childless mother, no years shall restore to thee the lost, notime and no day whatsoever shall save thy child from thestarkness of death, or redeem him!"

Thus he avenged the queen's threats of death by taunting her withthe youths whom he had slain; and, flinging back the cup at her,drenched her face with the sprinkled wine.

Meantime Signe asked her weeping women whether they could endureto bear her company in the things which she purposed.  Theypromised that they would carry out and perform themselveswhatsoever their mistress should come to wish, and their promisewas loyally kept.  Then, drowned in tears, she said that shewished to follow in death the only partner of her bed that shehad ever had; and ordered that, as soon as the signal had beengiven from a place of watch, torches should be put to the room,then that halters should be made out of their robes; and to thesethey should proffer their throats to be strangled, thrusting awaythe support to the feet.  They agreed, and that they might blenchthe less at death, she gave them a draught of wine.  After thisHagbard was led to the hill, which afterwards took its name fromhim, to be hanged.  Then, to test the loyalty of his true love,he told the executioners to hang up his mantle, saying that itwould be a pleasure to him if he could see the likeness of hisapproaching death rehearsed in some way.  The request wasgranted; and the watcher on the outlook, thinking that the thingwas being done to Hagbard, reported what she saw to the maidenswho were shut within the palace.  They quickly fired the house,and thrusting away the wooden support under their feet, gavetheir necks to the noose to be writhen.  So Hagbard, when he sawthe palace wrapped in fire, and the familiar chamber blazing,said that he felt more joy from the loyalty of his mistress thansorrow at his approaching death.  He also charged the bystandersto do him to death, witnessing how little he made of his doom bya song like this:

"Swiftly, O warriors!  Let me be caught and lifted into the air.Sweet, O my bride!  Is it for me to die when thou hast gone.

"I perceive the crackling and the house ruddy with flames; andthe love, long-promised, declares our troth.

"Behold, thy covenant is fulfilled with no doubtful vows, sincethou sharest my life and my destruction.

"We shall have one end, one bond after our troth, and somewhereour first love will live on.

"Happy am I, that have deserved to have joy of such a consort,and not to go basely alone to the gods of Tartarus!

"Then let the knot gripe the midst of the throat; nought butpleasure the last doom shall bring,

"Since there remains a sure hope of the renewal of love, and adeath which will soon have joys of its own.

"Either country is sweet; in both worlds shall be held in honourthe repose of our souls together, our equal truth in love,

"For, see now, I welcome the doom before me; since not even amongthe shades does very love suffer the embrace of its partner toperish."  And as he spoke the executioners strangled him.  And,that none may think that all traces of antiquity have utterlydisappeared, a proof of the aforesaid event is afforded by localmarks yet existing; for the killing of Hagbard gave his name tothe stead; and not far from the town of Sigar there is a place tobe seen, where a mound a little above the level, with theappearance of a swelling in the ground, looks like an ancienthomestead.  Moreover, a man told Absalon that he had seen a beamfound in the spot, which a countryman struck with his ploughshareas he burrowed into the clods.

Hakon, the son of Hamund, heard of this; but when he was seen tobe on the point of turning his arms from the Irish against theDanes in order to avenge his brother, Hakon the Zealander, theson of Wigar, and Starkad deserted him.  They had been his alliesfrom the death of Ragnald up to that hour: one, because he wasmoved by regard for friendship, the other by regard for hisbirth; so that different reasons made both desire the same thing.

Now patriotism diverted Hakon (of Zealand) from attacking hiscountry; for it was apparent that he was going to fight his ownpeople, while all the rest warred with foreigners.  But Starkadforbore to become the foe of the aged Sigar, whose hospitality hehad enjoyed, lest he should be thought to wrong one who deservedwell of him.  For some men pay such respect to hospitality that,if they can remember ever to have experienced kindly offices fromfolk, they cannot be thought to inflict any annoyance on them.But Hakon thought the death of his brother a worse loss than thedefection of his champions; and, gathering his fleet into thehaven called Herwig in Danish, and in Latin Hosts' Bight, he drewup his men, and posted his line of foot-soldiers in the spotwhere the town built by Esbern now defends with itsfortifications those who dwell hard by, and repels the approachof barbarous savages.  Then he divided his forces in three, andsent on two-thirds of his ships, appointing a few men to row tothe river Susa.  This force was to advance on a dangerous voyagealong its winding reaches, and to help those on foot ifnecessary.  He marched in person by land with the remainder,advancing chiefly over wooded country to escape notice.  Part ofthis path, which was once closed up with thick woods, is now landready for the plough, and fringed with a scanty scrub.  And, inorder that when they got out into the plain they might not lackthe shelter of trees, he told them to cut and carry branches.Also, that nothing might burden their rapid march, he bade themcast away some of their clothes, as well as their scabbards; andcarry their swords naked.  In memory of this event he left themountain and the ford a perpetual name.  Thus by his night marchhe eluded two pickets of sentries; but when he came upon thethird, a scout, observing the marvellous event, went to thesleeping-room of Sigar, saying that he brought news of aportentous thing; for he saw leaves and shrubs like men walking.Then the king asked him how far off was the advancing forest; andwhen he heard that it was near, he added that this prodigy bodedhis own death.  Hence the marsh where the shrubs were cut downwas styled in common parlance Deadly Marsh.  Therefore, fearingthe narrow passages, he left the town, and went to a level spotwhich was more open, there to meet the enemy in battle.  Sigarfought unsuccessfully, and was crushed and slain at the spot thatis called in common speech Walbrunna, but in Latin the Spring ofCorpses or Carnage.  Then Hakon used his conquest to cruelpurpose, and followed up his good fortune so wickedly, that helusted for an indiscriminate massacre, and thought no forbearanceshould be shown to rank or sex.  Nor did he yield to any regardfor compassion or shame, but stained his sword in the blood ofwomen, and attacked mothers and children in one general andruthless slaughter.

SIWALD, the son of Sigar, had thus far stayed under his father'sroof.  But when he heard of this, he mustered an army in order tohave his vengeance.  So Hakon, alarmed at the gathering of suchnumbers, went back with a third of his army to his fleet atHerwig, and planned to depart by sea.  But his colleague, Hakon,surnamed the Proud, thought that he ought himself to feel moreconfidence at the late victory than fear at the absence of Hakon;and, preferring death to flight, tried to defend the remainder ofthe army.  So he drew back his camp for a little, and for a longtime waited near the town of Axelsted, for the arrival of thefleet, blaming his friends for their tardy coming.  For the fleetthat had been sent into the river had not yet come to anchor inthe appointed harbour.  Now the killing of Sigar and the love ofSiwald were stirring the temper of the people one and all, sothat both sexes devoted themselves to war, and you would havethought that the battle did not lack the aid of women.

On the morrow Hakon and Siwald met in an encounter and fought twowhole days.  The combat was most frightful; both generals fell;and victory graced the remnants of the Danes.  But, in the nightafter the battle, the fleet, having penetrated the Susa, reachedthe appointed haven.  It was once possible to row along thisriver; but its bed is now choked with solid substances, and is sonarrowed by its straits that few vessels can get in, beingprevented by its sluggishness and contractedness.  At daybreak,when the sailors saw the corpses of their friends, they heapedup, in order to bury the general, a barrow of notable size, whichis famous to this day, and is commonly named Hakon's Howe.

But Borgar, with Skanian chivalry suddenly came up andslaughtered a multitude of them.  When the enemy were destroyed,he manned their ships, which now lacked their rowers, andhastily, with breathless speed, pursued the son of Hamund.  Heencountered him, and ill-fortune befell Hakon, who fled in hastypanic with three ships to the country of the Scots, where, aftertwo years had gone by, he died.

All these perilous wars and fortunes had so exhausted the royalline among the Danes, that it was found to be reduced to GURIDalone, the daughter of Alf, and granddaughter of Sigar.  And whenthe Danes saw themselves deprived of their usual high-bornsovereigns, they committed the kingdom to men of the people, andappointed rulers out of the commons, assigning to Ostmar theregency of Skaane, and that of Zealand to Hunding; on Hane theyconferred the lordship of Funen; while in the hands of Rorik andHather they put the supreme power of Jutland, the authority beingdivided.  Therefore, that it may not be unknown from what fathersprang the succeeding line of kings, some matters come to my mindwhich must be glanced at for a while in a needful digression.

They say that Gunnar, the bravest of the Swedes, was once at feudwith Norway for the most weighty reasons, and that he was grantedliberty to attack it, but that he turned this liberty intolicence by the greatest perils, and fell, in the first of theraids he planned, upon the district of Jather, which he putpartly to the sword and partly to the flames.  Forbearing toplunder, he rejoiced only in passing through the paths that werecovered with corpses, and the blood-stained ways.  Other men usedto abstain from bloodshed, and love pillage more than slaughter;but he preferred bloodthirstiness to booty, and liked best towreak his deadly pleasure by slaughtering men.  His cruelty drovethe islanders to forestall the impending danger by a publicsubmission.  Moreover, Ragnald, the King of the Northmen, now inextreme age, when he heard how the tyrant busied himself, had acave made and shut up in it his daughter Drota, giving her dueattendance, and providing her maintenance for a long time.  Alsohe committed to the cave some swords which had been adorned withthe choicest smith-craft, besides the royal household gear; sothat he might not leave the enemy to capture and use the sword,which he saw that he could not wield himself.  And, to preventthe cave being noticed by its height, he levelled the hump downto the firmer ground.  Then he set out to war; but being unablewith his aged limbs to go down into battle, he leaned on theshoulders of his escort and walked forth propped by the steps ofothers.  So he perished in the battle, where he fought with moreardour than success, and left his country a sore matter forshame.

For Gunnar, in order to punish the cowardice of the conqueredrace by terms of extraordinary baseness, had a dog set over themas a governor.  What can we suppose to have been his object inthis action, unless it were to make a haughty nation feel thattheir arrogance was being more signally punished when they bowedtheir stubborn heads before a yapping hound?  To let no insult belacking, he appointed governors to look after public and privateaffairs in its name; and he appointed separate ranks of nobles tokeep continual and steadfast watch over it.  He also enacted thatif any one of the courtiers thought it contemptible to doallegiance to their chief, and omitted offering most respectfulhomage to its various goings and comings as it ran hither andthither, he should be punished with loss of his limbs.  AlsoGunnar imposed on the nation a double tribute, one to be paid outof the autumn harvest, the other in the spring.  Thus he burstthe bubble conceit of the Norwegians, to make them feel clearlyhow their pride was gone, when they saw it forced to do homage toa dog.

When he heard that the king's daughter was shut up in somedistant hiding-place, Gunnar strained his wits in every nerve totrack her out.  Hence, while he was himself conducting the searchwith others, his doubtful ear caught the distant sound of asubterranean hum.  Then he went on slowly, and recognized a humanvoice with greater certainty.  He ordered the ground underfoot tobe dug down to the solid rock; and when the cave was suddenlylaid open, he saw the winding tunnels.  The servants were slainas they tried to guard the now uncovered entrance to the cave,and the girl was dragged out of the hole, together with the bootytherein concealed.  With great foresight, she had consigned atany rate her father's swords to the protection of a more secretplace.  Gunnar forced her to submit to his will, and she bore ason Hildiger.  This man was such a rival to his father incruelty, that he was ever thirsting to kill, and was bent onnothing but the destruction of men, panting with a boundless lustfor bloodshed.  Outlawed by his father on account of hisunbearable ruthlessness, and soon after presented by Alver with agovernment, he spent his whole life in arms, visiting hisneighbours with wars and slaughters; nor did he, in his estate ofbanishment, relax his accustomed savagery a whir, but would notchange his spirit with his habitation.

Meanwhile Borgar, finding that Gunnar had married Drota, thedaughter of Ragnald, by violence, took from him both life andwife, and wedded Drota himself.  She was not an unwilling bride;she thought it right for her to embrace the avenger of herparent.  For the daughter mourned her father, and could neverbring herself to submit with any pleasure to his murderer.  Thiswoman and Borgar had a son Halfdan, who through all his earlyyouth was believed to be stupid, but whose later years provedillustrious for the most glorious deeds, and famous for thehighest qualities that can grace life.  Once, when a stripling,he mocked in boyish fashion at a champion of noble repute, whosmote him with a buffet; whereupon Halfdan attacked him with thestaff he was carrying and killed him.  This deed was an omen ofhis future honours; he had hitherto been held in scorn, buthenceforth throughout his life he had the highest honour andglory.  The affair, indeed, was a prophecy of the greatness ofhis deeds in war.

At this period, Rothe, a Ruthenian rover, almost destroyed ourcountry with his rapine and cruelty.  His harshness was sonotable that, while other men spared their prisoners utternakedness, he did not think it uncomely to strip of theircoverings even the privy parts of their bodies; wherefore we arewont to this day to call all severe and monstrous acts of rapineRothe-Ran (Rothe's Robbery).  He used also sometimes to inflictthe following kind of torture: Fastening the men's right feetfirmly to the earth, he tied the left feet to boughs for thepurpose that when these should spring back the body would be rentasunder.  Hane, Prince of Funen, wishing to win honour and glory,tried to attack this man with his sea-forces, but took to flightwith one attendant.  It was in reproach of him that the proverbarose: "The cock (Hane) fights better on its own dunghill."  ThenBorgar, who could not bear to see his countrymen perishing anylonger, encountered Rothe.  Together they fought and togetherthey perished.  It is said that in this battle Halfdan was sorelystricken, and was for some time feeble with the wounds he hadreceived.  One of these was inflicted conspicuously on his mouth,and its scar was so manifest that it remained as an open blotchwhen all the other wounds were healed; for the crushed portion ofthe lip was so ulcerated by the swelling, that the flesh wouldnot grow out again and mend the noisome gash.  This circumstancefixed on him a most insulting nickname,.... although wounds inthe front of the body commonly bring praise and not ignominy.  Sospiteful a colour does the belief of the vulgar sometimes putupon men's virtues.

Meanwhile Gurid, the daughter of Alf, seeing that the royal linewas reduced to herself alone, and having no equal in birth whomshe could marry, proclaimed a vow imposing chastity on herself,thinking it better to have no husband than to take one from thecommons.  Moreover, to escape outrage, she guarded her room witha chosen band of champions.  Once Halfdan happened to come to seeher.  The champions, whose brother he had himself slain in hisboyhood, were away.  He told her that she ought to loose hervirgin zone, and exchange her austere chastity for deeds of love;that she ought not to give in so much to her inclination formodesty as to be too proud to make a match, and so by her servicerepair the fallen monarchy.  So he bade her look on himself, whowas of eminently illustrious birth, in the light of a husband,since it appeared that she would only admit pleasure for thereason he had named.  Gurid answered that she could not bring hermind to ally the remnants of the royal line to a man of meanerrank.  Not content with reproaching his obscure birth, she alsotaunted his unsightly countenance.  Halfdan rejoined that shebrought against him two faults: one that his blood was notillustrious enough; another, that he was blemished with a crackedlip whose scar had never healed.  Therefore he would not comeback to ask for her before he had wiped away both marks of shameby winning glory in war.

Halfdan entreated her to suffer no man to be privy to her beduntil she heard certain tidings either of his return or hisdeath.  The champions, whom he had bereaved of their brother longago, were angry that he had spoken to Gurid, and tried to rideafter him as he went away.  When he saw it, he told his comradesto go into ambush, and said he would encounter the championsalone.  His followers lingered, and thought it shameful to obeyhis orders, but he drove them off with threats, saying that Guridshould not find that fear had made him refuse to fight. Presently he cut down an oak-tree and fashioned it into a club,fought the twelve single-handed, and killed them.  After theirdestruction, not content with the honours of so splendid anaction, and meaning to do one yet greater, he got from his motherthe swords of his grandfather, one of which was calledLyusing.... and the other Hwyting, after the sheen of its well-whetted point.  But when he heard that war was raging betweenAlver, the King of Sweden, and the Ruthenians (Russians), heinstantly went to Russia, offered help to the natives, and wasreceived by all with the utmost honour.  Alver was not far off,there being only a little ground to cross to cover the distancebetween the two.  Alver's soldier Hildiger, the son of Gunnar,challenged the champions of the Ruthenians to fight him; but whenhe saw that Halfdan was put up against him, though knowing wellthat he was Halfdan's brother, he let natural feeling prevailover courage, and said that he, who was famous for thedestruction of seventy champions, would not fight with an untriedman.  Therefore he told him to measure himself in enterprises oflesser moment, and thenceforth to follow pursuits fitted to hisstrength.  He made this announcement not from distrust in his owncourage, but in order to preserve his uprightness; for he was notonly very valiant, but also skilled at blunting the sword withspells.  For when he remembered that Halfdan's father had slainhis own, he was moved by two feelings -- the desire to avenge hisfather, and his love for his brother.  He therefore thought itbetter to retire from the challenge than to be guilty of a verygreat crime.  Halfdan demanded another champion in his place,slew him when he appeared, and was soon awarded the palm ofvalour even by the voice of the enemy, being accounted by publicacclamation the bravest of all.  On the next day he asked for twomen to fight with, and slew them both.  On the third day hesubdued three; on the fourth he overcame four who met him; and onthe fifth he asked for five.

When Halfdan conquered these, and when the eighth day had beenreached with an equal increase in the combatants and in thevictory, he laid low eleven who attacked him at once.  Hildiger,seeing that his own record of honours was equalled by thegreatness of Halfdan's deeds could not bear to decline to meethim any longer.  And when he felt that Halfdan had dealt him adeadly wound with a sword wrapped in rags, he threw away hisarms, and, lying on the earth, addressed his brother as follows:

"It is pleasing to pass an hour away in mutual talk; and, whilethe sword rests, to sit a little on the ground and while away thetime by speaking in turn, and keep ourselves in good heart.  Timeis left for our purpose; our two destinies have a different lot;one is surely doomed to die by a fatal weird, while triumph andglory and all the good of living await the other in better years.Thus our omens differ, and our portions are distinguished.  Thouart a son of the Danish land, I of the country of Sweden.  Once,Drota thy mother had her breast swell for thee; she bore me, andby her I am thy foster-brother.  Lo now, there perishes arighteous offspring, who had the heart to fight with savagespears; brothers born of a shining race charge and bring death onone another; while they long for the height of power, they losetheir days, and, having now received a fatal mischief in theirdesire for a sceptre, they will go to Styx in a common death.Fast by my head stands my Swedish shield, which is adorned with(as) a fresh mirror of diverse chasing, and ringed with layers ofmarvellous fretwork.  There a picture of really hues shows slainnobles and conquered champions, and the wars also and the notabledeed of my right hand.  In the midst is to be seen, painted inbright relief, the figure of my son, whom this hand bereft of hisspan of life.  He was our only heir, the only thought of hisfather's mind, and given to his mother with comfort from above.An evil lot, which heaps years of ill-fortune on the joyous,chokes mirth in mourning, and troubles our destiny.  For it islamentable and wretched to drag out a downcast life, to drawbreath through dismal days and to chafe at foreboding.  Butwhatsoever things are bound by the prophetic order of the fates,whatsoever are shadowed in the secrets of the divine plan,whatsoever are foreseen and fixed in the course of the destinies,no change of what is transient shall cancel these things."

When he had thus spoken, Halfdan condemned Hildiger for sloth inavowing so late their bond of brotherhood; he declared he hadkept silence that he might not be thought a coward for refusingto fight, or a villain if he fought; and while intent on thesewords of excuse, he died.  But report had given out among theDanes that Hildiger had overthrown Halfdan.  After this, Siwar, aSaxon of very high birth, began to be a suitor for Gurid, theonly survivor of the royal blood among the Danes.  Secretly shepreferred Halfdan to him, and imposed on her wooer the conditionthat he should not ask her in marriage till he had united intoone body the kingdom of the Danes, which was now torn limb fromlimb, and restored by arms what had been wrongfully taken fromher.  Siwar made a vain attempt to do this; but as he bribed allthe guardians, she was at last granted to him in betrothal.Halfdan heard of this in Russia through traders, and voyaged sohard that he arrived before the time of the wedding-rites.  Ontheir first day, before he went to the palace, he gave ordersthat his men should not stir from the watches appointed them tilltheir ears caught the clash of the steel in the distance. Unknown to the guests, he came and stood before the maiden, and,that he might not reveal his meaning to too many by bare andcommon speech, he composed a dark and ambiguous song as follows:

"As I left my father's sceptre, I had no fear of the wiles ofwoman's device nor of female subtlety.

"When I overthrew, one and two, three and four, and soon five,and next six, then seven, and also eight, yea eleven single-handed, triumphant in battle.

"But neither did I then think that I was to be shamed with thetaint of disgrace, with thy frailness to thy word and thybeguiling pledges."

Gurid answered: "My soul wavered in suspense, with slender powerover events, and shifted about with restless fickleness.  Thereport of thee was so fleeting, so doubtful, borne on uncertainstories, and parched by doubting heart.  I feared that the yearsof thy youth had perished by the sword.  Could I withstand singlymy elders and governors, when they forbade me to refuse thatthing, and pressed me to become a wife?  My love and my flame areboth yet unchanged, they shall be mate and match to thine; norhas my troth been disturbed, but shall have faithful approach tothee.

"For my promise has not yet beguiled thee at all, though I, beingalone, could not reject the counsel of such manifold persuasion,nor oppose their stern bidding in the matter of my consent to themarriage bond."

Before the maiden had finished her answer, Halfdan had alreadyrun his sword through the bridegroom.  Not content with havingkilled one man, he massacred most of the guests.  Staggeringtipsily backwards, the Saxons ran at him, but his servants cameup and slaughtered them.  After this HALFDAN took Gurid to wife.But finding in her the fault of barrenness, and desiring much tohave offspring, he went to Upsala in order to procurefruitfulness for her; and being told in answer, that he must makeatonement to the shades of his brother if he would raise upchildren, he obeyed the oracle, and was comforted by gaining hisdesire.  For he had a son by Gurid, to whom he gave the name ofHarald.  Under his title Halfdan tried to restore the kingdom ofthe Danes to its ancient estate, as it was torn asunder by theinjuries of the chiefs; but, while fighting in Zealand, heattacked Wesete, a very famous champion, in battle, and wasslain.  Gurid was at the battle in man's attire, from love forher son.  She saw the event; the young man fought hotly, but hiscompanions fled; and she took him on her shoulders to aneighbouring wood.  Weariness, more than anything else, kept theenemy from pursuing him; but one of them shot him as he hung,with an arrow, through the hinder parts, and Harald thought thathis mother's care brought him more shame than help.

HARALD, being of great beauty and unusual size, and surpassingthose of his age in strength and stature, received such favourfrom Odin (whose oracle was thought to have been the cause of hisbirth), that steel could not injure his perfect soundness.  Theresult was, that shafts which wounded others were disabled fromdoing him any harm.  Nor was the boon unrequited; for he isreported to have promised to Odin all the souls which his swordcast out of their bodies.  He also had his father's deedsrecorded for a memorial by craftsmen on a rock in Bleking,whereof I have made mention.

After this, hearing that Wesete was to hold his wedding inSkaane, he went to the feast disguised as a beggar; and when allwere sunken in wine and sleep, he battered the bride-chamber witha beam.  But Wesete, without inflicting a wound, so beat hismouth with a cudgel, that he took out two teeth; but two grindersunexpectedly broke out afterwards and repaired their loss: anevent which earned him the name of Hyldetand, which some declarehe obtained on account of a prominent row of teeth.  Here he slewWesete, and got the sovereignty of Skaane.  Next he attacked andkilled Hather in Jutland; and his fall is marked by the lastingname of the town.  After this he overthrew Hunding and Rorik,seized Leire, and reunited the dismembered realm of Denmark intoits original shape.  Then he found that Asmund, the King of theWikars, had been deprived of his throne by his elder sister; and,angered by such presumption on the part of a woman, went toNorway with a single ship, while the war was still undecided, tohelp him.  The battle began; and, clothed in a purple cloak, witha coif broidered with gold, and with his hair bound up, he wentagainst the enemy trusting not in arms, but in his silentcertainty of his luck, insomuch that he seemed dressed more for afeast than a fray.  But his spirit did not match his attire. For, though unarmed and only adorned with his emblems of royalty,he outstripped the rest who bore arms, and exposed himself,lightly-armed as he was, to the hottest perils of the battle. For the shafts aimed against him lost all power to hurt, as iftheir points had been blunted.  When the other side saw himfighting unarmed, they made an attack, and were forced for veryshame into assailing him more hotly.  But Harald, whole in body,either put them to the sword, or made them take to flight; andthus he overthrew the sister of Asmund, and restored him hiskingdom.  When Asmund offered him the prizes of victory, he saidthat the reward of glory was enough by itself; and demeanedhimself as greatly in refusing the gifts as he had in earningthem.  By this he made all men admire his self-restraint as muchas his valour; and declared that the victory should give him aharvest not of gold but glory.

Meantime Alver, the King of the Swedes, died leaving sons Olaf,Ing, and Ingild.  One of these, Ing, dissatisfied with thehonours his father bequeathed him, declared war with the Danes inorder to extend his empire.  And when Harald wished to inquire oforacles how this war would end, an old man of great height, butlacking one eye, and clad also in a hairy mantle, appeared beforehim, and declared that he was called Odin, and was versed in thepractice of warfare; and he gave him the most useful instructionhow to divide up his army in the field.  Now he told him,whenever he was going to make war with his land-forces, to dividehis whole army into three squadrons, each of which he was to packinto twenty ranks; the centre squadron, however, he was to extendfurther than the rest by the number of twenty men.  This squadronhe was also to arrange in the form of the point of a cone orpyramid, and to make the wings on either side slant off obliquelyfrom it.  He was to compose the successive ranks of each squadronin the following way: the front should begin with two men, andthe number in each succeeding rank should only increase by one;he was, in fact, to post a rank of three in the second line, fourin the third, and so on behind.  And thus, when the men mustered,all the succeeding ranks were to be manned at the same rate ofproportion, until the end of (the edge that made) the junction ofmen came down to the wings; each wing was to be drawn up in tenlines from that point.  Likewise after these squadrons he was toput the young men, equipped with lances, and behind these to setthe company of aged men, who would support their comrades withwhat one might call a veteran valour if they faltered; next, askilful reckoner should attach wings of slingers to stand behindthe ranks of their fellows and attack the enemy from a distancewith missiles.  After these he was to enroll men of any age orrank indiscriminately, without heed of their estate.  Moreover,he was to draw up the rear like the vanguard, in three separateddivisions, and arranged in ranks similarly proportioned.  Theback of this, joining on to the body in front would protect it byfacing in the opposite direction.  But if a sea-battle happenedto occur, he should withdraw a portion of his fleet, which whenhe began the intended engagement, was to cruise round that of theenemy, wheeling to and fro continually.  Equipped with thissystem of warfare, he forestalled matters in Sweden, and killedIng and Olaf as they were making ready to fight.  Their brotherIngild sent messengers to beg a truce, on pretence of his ill-health.  Harald granted his request, that his own valour, whichhad learnt to spare distress, might not triumph over a man in thehour of lowliness and dejection. When Ingild afterwards provokedHarald by wrongfully ravishing his sister, Harald vexed him withlong and indecisive war, but then took him into his friendship,thinking it better to have him for ally than for enemy.

After this he heard that Olaf, King of the Thronds, had to fightwith the maidens Stikla and Rusila for the kingdom.  Much angeredat this arrogance on the part of women, he went to Olafunobserved, put on dress which concealed the length of his teeth,and attacked the maidens.  He overthrew them both, leaving to twoharbours a name akin to theirs.  It was then that he gave anotable exhibition of valour; for defended only by a shirt underhis shoulders, he fronted the spears with unarmed breast.

When Olaf offered Harald the prize of victory, he rejected thegift, thus leaving it a question whether he had shown a greaterexample of bravery or self-control.  Then he attacked a championof the Frisian nation, named Ubbe, who was ravaging the bordersof Jutland and destroying numbers of the common people; and whenHarald could not subdue him to his arms, he charged his soldiersto grip him with their hands, throw him on the ground, and tobind him while thus overpowered.  Thus he only overcame the manand mastered him by a shameful kind of attack, though a littlebefore he thought he would inflict a heavy defeat on him.  ButHarald gave him his sister in marriage, and thus gained him forhis soldier.

Harald made tributaries of the nations that lay along the Rhine,levying troops from the bravest of that race.  With these forceshe conquered Sclavonia in war, and caused its generals, Duk andDal, because of their bravery, to be captured, and not killed.These men he took to serve with him, and, after overcomingAquitania, soon went to Britain, where he overthrew the King ofthe Humbrians, and enrolled the smartest of the warriors he hadconquered, the chief of whom was esteemed to be Orm, surnamed theBriton.  The fame of these deeds brought champions from diversparts of the world, whom he formed into a band of mercenaries.Strengthened by their numbers, he kept down insurrections in allkingdoms by the terror of his name, so that he took out of theirrulers all courage to fight with one another.  Moreover, no mandurst assume any sovereignty on the sea without his consent; forof old the state of the Danes had the joint lordship of land andsea.

Meantime Ingild died in Sweden, leaving only a very little son,Ring, whom he had by the sister of Harald.  Harald gave the boyguardians, and put him over his father's kingdom.  Thus, when hehad overcome princes and provinces, he passed fifty years inpeace.  To save the minds of his soldiers from being melted intosloth by this inaction, he decreed that they should assiduouslylearn from the champions the way of parrying and dealing blows.Some of these were skilled in a remarkable manner of fighting,and used to smite the eyebrow on the enemy's forehead with aninfallible stroke; but if any man, on receiving the blow, blinkedfor fear, twitching his eyebrow, he was at once expelled thecourt and dismissed the service.

At this time Ole, the son of Siward and of Harald's sister, cameto Denmark from the land of Norway in the desire to see hisuncle.  Since it is known that he had the first place among thefollowers of Harald, and that after the Swedish war he came tothe throne of Denmark, it bears somewhat on the subject to relatethe traditions of his deeds.  Ole, then, when he had passed histenth to his fifteenth year with his father, showed incredibleproofs of his brilliant gifts both of mind and body.  Moreover,he was so savage of countenance that his eyes were like the armsof other men against the enemy, and he terrified the bravest withhis stern and flashing glance.  He heard the tidings that Gunn,ruler of Tellemark, with his son Grim, was haunting as a robberthe forest of Etha-scog, which was thick with underbrush and fullof gloomy glens.  The offence moved his anger; then he asked hisfather for a horse, a dog, and such armour as could be got, andcursed his youth, which was suffering the right season for valourto slip sluggishly away.  He got what he asked, and explored theaforesaid wood very narrowly.  He saw the footsteps of a manprinted deep on the snow; for the rime was blemished by thesteps, and betrayed the robber's progress.  Thus guided, he wentover a hill, and came on a very great river.  This effaced thehuman tracks he had seen before, and he determined that he mustcross.  But the mere mass of water, whose waves ran down in aheadlong torrent, seemed to forbid all crossing; for it was fullof hidden reefs, and the whole length of its channel was turbidwith a kind of whirl of foam.  Yet all fear of danger wasbanished from Ole's mind by his impatience to make haste.  Sovalour conquered fear, and rashness scorned peril; thinkingnothing hard to do if it were only to his mind, he crossed thehissing eddies on horseback.  When he had passed these, he cameupon defiles surrounded on all sides with swamps, the interior ofwhich was barred from easy approach by the pinnacle of a bank infront.  He took his horse over this, and saw an enclosure with anumber of stalls.  Out of this he turned many horses, and wasminded to put in his own, when a certain Tok, a servant of Gunn,angry that a stranger should wax so insolent, attacked himfiercely; but Ole foiled his assailant by simply opposing hisshield.  Thinking it a shame to slay the fellow with the sword,he seized him, shattered him limb by limb, and flung him acrossinto the house whence he had issued in his haste.  This insultquickly aroused Gunn and Grim: they ran out by different side-doors, and charged Ole both at once, despising his age andstrength.  He wounded them fatally; and, when their bodily powerswere quite spent, Grim, who could scarce muster a final gasp, andwhose force was almost utterly gone, with his last pants composedthis song:

"Though we be weak in frame, and the loss of blood has drainedour strength; since the life-breath, now drawn out by my wound,scarce quivers softly in my pierced breast:

"I counsel that we should make the battle of our last hourglorious with dauntless deeds, that none may say that a combathas anywhere been bravelier waged or harder fought;

"And that our wild strife while we bore arms may, when our wearyflesh has found rest in the tomb, win us the wage of immortalfame.

"Let our first stroke crush the shoulder-blades of the foe, letour steel cut off both his hands; so that, when Stygian Pluto hastaken us, a like doom may fall on Ole also, and a common deathtremble over three, and one urn cover the ashes of three."

Here Grim ended.  But his father, rivalling his indomitablespirit, and wishing to give some exhortation in answer to hisson's valiant speech, thus began:

"What though our veins be wholly bloodless, and in our frail bodythe life be brief, yet our last fight be so strong and strenuousthat it suffer not the praise of us to be brief also.

"Therefore aim the javelin first at the shoulders and arms of thefoe, so that the work of his hands may be weakened; and thus whenwe are gone three shall receive a common sepulchre, and one urnalike for three shall cover our united dust."

When he had said this, both of them, resting on their knees (forthe approach of death had drained their strength), made adesperate effort to fight Ole hand to hand, in order that, beforethey perished, they might slay their enemy also; counting deathas nothing if only they might envelope their slayer in a commonfall.  Ole slew one of them with his sword, the other with hishound.  But even he gained no bloodless victory; for though hehad been hitherto unscathed, now at last he received a wound infront.  His dog diligently licked him over, and he regained hisbodily strength: and soon, to publish sure news of his victory,he hung the bodies of the robbers upon gibbets in wide view.Moreover, he took the stronghold, and put in secret keeping allthe booty he found there, in reserve for future use.

At this time the arrogant wantonness of the brothers Skate andHiale waxed so high that they would take virgins of notablebeauty from their parents and ravish them.  Hence it came aboutthat they formed the purpose of seizing Esa, the daughter ofOlaf, prince of the Werms; and bade her father, if he would nothave her serve the passion of a stranger, fight either in person,or by some deputy, in defence of his child.  When Ole had news ofthis, he rejoiced in the chance of a battle, and borrowing theattire of a peasant, went to the dwelling of Olaf.  He receivedone of the lowest places at table; and when he saw the householdof the king in sorrow, he called the king's son closer to him,and asked why they all wore so lamentable a face.  The otheranswered, that unless someone quickly interposed to protect them,his sister's chastity would soon be outraged by some ferociouschampions.  Ole next asked him what reward would be received bythe man who devoted his life for the maiden.  Olaf, on his sonasking him about this matter, said that his daughter should go tothe man who fought for her: and these words, more than anything,made Ole long to encounter the danger.

Now the maiden was wont to go from one guest to another in orderto scan their faces narrowly, holding out a light that she mighthave a surer view of the dress and character of those who wereentertained.  It is also believed that she divined their lineagefrom the lines and features of the face, and could discern anyman's birth by sheer shrewdness of vision.  When she stood andfixed the scrutiny of her gaze upon Olaf, she was stricken withthe strange awfulness of his eyes, and fell almost lifeless.  Butwhen her strength came slowly back, and her breath went and camemore freely, she again tried to look at the young man, butsuddenly slipped and fell forward, as though distraught.  A thirdtime also she strove to lift her closed and downcast gaze, butsuddenly tottered and fell, unable not only to move her eyes, buteven to control her feet; so much can strength be palsied byamazement.  When Olaf saw it, he asked her why she had fallen sooften.  She averred that she was stricken by the savage gaze ofthe guest; that he was born of kings; and she declared that if hecould baulk the will of the ravishers, he was well worthy of herarms.  Then all of them asked Ole, who was keeping his facemuffled in a hat, to fling off his covering, and let them seesomething by which to learn his features.  Then, bidding them alllay aside their grief, and keep their heart far from sorrow, heuncovered his brow; and he drew the eyes of all upon him inmarvel at his great beauty.  For his locks were golden and thehair of his head was radiant; but he kept the lids close over hispupils, that they might not terrify the beholders.

All were heartened with the hope of better things; the guestsseemed to dance and the courtiers to leap for joy; the deepestmelancholy seemed to be scattered by an outburst of cheerfulness.Thus hope relieved their fears; the banquet wore a new face, andnothing was the same, or like what it had been before.  So thekindly promise of a single guest dispelled the universal terror.Meanwhile Hiale and Skate came up with ten servants, meaning tocarry off the maiden then and there, and disturbed all the placewith their noisy shouts.  They called on the king to give battle,unless he produced his daughter instantly.  Ole at once met theirfrenzy with the promise to fight, adding the condition that noone should stealthily attack an opponent in the rear, but shouldonly combat in the battle face to face.  Then, with his swordcalled Logthi, he felled them all, single-handed -- anachievement beyond his years.  The ground for the battle wasfound on an isle in the middle of a swamp, not far from which isa stead that serves to memorise this slaughter, bearing the namesof the brothers Hiale and Skate together.

So the girl was given him as prize of the combat, and bore him ason Omund.  Then he gained his father-in-law's leave to revisithis father.  But when he heard that his country was beingattacked by Thore, with the help of Toste Sacrificer, and Leotar,surnamed.... he went to fight them, content with a singleservant, who was dressed as a woman.  When he was near the houseof Thore, he concealed his own and his attendant's swords inhollowed staves.  And when he entered the palace, he disguisedhis true countenance, and feigned to be a man broken with age. He said that with Siward he had been king of the beggars, butthat he was now in exile, having been stubbornly driven forth bythe hatred of the king's son Ole.  Presently many of thecourtiers greeted him with the name of king, and began to kneeland offer him their hands in mockery.  He told them to bear outin deeds what they had done in jest; and, plucking out the swordswhich he and his man kept shut in their staves, attacked theking.  So some aided Ole, taking it more as jest than earnest,and would not be false to the loyalty which they mockinglyyielded him; but most of them, breaking their idle vow, took theside of Thore.  Thus arose an internecine and undecided fray.  Atlast Thore was overwhelmed and slain by the arms of his own folk,as much as by these of his guests; and Leotar, wounded to thedeath, and judging that his conqueror, Ole, was as keen in mindas he was valorous in deeds, gave him the name of the Vigorous,and prophesied that he should perish by the same kind of trick ashe had used with Thore; for, without question he should fall bythe treachery of his own house.  And, as he spoke, he suddenlypassed away.  Thus we can see that the last speech of the dyingman expressed by its shrewd divination the end that should comeupon his conqueror.

After these deeds Ole did not go back to his father till he hadrestored peace to his house.  His father gave him the command ofthe sea, and he destroyed seventy sea-kings in a naval battle.The most distinguished among these were Birwil and Hwirwil,Thorwil, Nef and Onef, Redward (?), Rand and Erand (?).  By thehonour and glory of this exploit he excited many champions, whosewhole heart's desire was for bravery, to join in alliance withhim.  He also enrolled into a bodyguard the wild young warriorswho were kindled with a passion for glory.  Among these hereceived Starkad with the greatest honour, and cherished him withmore friendship than profit.  Thus fortified, he checked, by thegreatness of his name, the wantonness of the neighbouring kings,in that he took from them all their forces and all liking andheart for mutual warfare.

After this he went to Harald, who made him commander of the sea;and at last he was transferred to the service of Ring.  At thistime one Brun was the sole partner and confidant of all Harald'scouncils.  To this man both Harald and Ring, whenever they neededa secret messenger, used to entrust their commissions.  Thisdegree of intimacy he obtained because he had been reared andfostered with them.  But Brun, amid the toils of his constantjourneys to and fro, was drowned in a certain river; and Odin,disguised under his name and looks, shook the close union of thekings by his treacherous embassage; and he sowed strife soguilefully that he engendered in men, who were bound byfriendship and blood, a bitter mutual hate, which seemedunappeasable except by war.  Their dissensions first grew upsilently; at last both sides betrayed their leanings, and theirsecret malice burst into the light of day.  So they declaredtheir feuds, and seven years passed in collecting the materialsof war.  Some say that Harald secretly sought occasions todestroy himself, not being moved by malice or jealousy for thecrown, but by a deliberate and voluntary effort.  His old age andhis cruelty made him a burden to his subjects; he preferred thesword to the pangs of disease, and liked better to lay down hislife in the battle-field than in his bed, that he might have anend in harmony with the deeds of his past life.  Thus, to makehis death more illustrious, and go to the nether world in alarger company, he longed to summon many men to share his end;and he therefore of his own will prepared for war, in order tomake food for future slaughter.  For these reasons, being seizedwith as great a thirst to die himself as to kill others, andwishing the massacre on both sides to be equal, he furnished bothsides with equal resources; but let Ring have a somewhat strongerforce, preferring he should conquer and survive him.

ENDNOTES:(1)  A parallel is the Lionel-Lancelot story of children saved by being turned into dogs.

Book 8