BOOK EIGHT.

STARKAD was the first to set in order in Danish speech thehistory of the Swedish war, a conflict whereof he was himself amighty pillar; the said history being rather an oral than awritten tradition.  He set forth and arranged the course of thiswar in the mother tongue according to the fashion of our country;but I purpose to put it into Latin, and will first recount themost illustrious princes on either side.  For I have felt nodesire to include the multitude, which are even past exactnumbering.  And my pen shall relate first those on the side ofHarald, and presently those who served under Ring.

Now the most famous of the captains that mustered to Harald areacknowledged to have been Sweyn and Sambar (Sam?), Ambar andElli; Rati of Funen, Salgard and Roe (Hrothgar), whom his longbeard distinguished by a nickname.  Besides these, Skalk theScanian, and Alf the son of Agg; to whom are joined Olwir theBroad, and Gnepie the Old.  Besides these there was Gardh,founder of the town Stang.  To these are added the kinsfolk orbound followers of Harald: Blend (Blaeng?), the dweller infurthest Thule, (1) and Brand, whose surname was Crumb(Bitling?).  Allied with these were Thorguy, with Thorwig, Tatar(Teit), and Hialte.  These men voyaged to Leire with bodies armedfor war; but they were also mighty in excellence of wit, andtheir trained courage matched their great stature; for they hadskill in discharging arrows both from bow and catapult, and atfighting their foe as they commonly did, man to man; and also atreadily stringing together verse in the speech of their country:so zealously had they trained mind and body alike.  Now out ofLeire came Hortar (Hjort) and Borrhy (Borgar or Borgny), and alsoBelgi and Beigad, to whom were added Bari and Toli.  Now out ofthe town of Sle, under the captains Hetha (Heid) and Wisna, withHakon Cut-cheek came Tummi the Sailmaker.  On these captains, whohad the bodies of women, nature bestowed the souls of men.Webiorg was also inspired with the same spirit, and was attendedby Bo (Bui) Bramason and Brat the Jute, thirsting for war.  Inthe same throng came Orm of England, Ubbe the Frisian, Ari theOne-eyed, and Alf Gotar.  Next in the count came Dal the Fat andDuk the Sclav; Wisna, a woman, filled with sternness, and askilled warrior, was guarded by a band of Sclavs: her chieffollowers were Barri and Gnizli.  But the rest of the samecompany had their bodies covered by little shields, and used verylong swords and targets of skiey hue, which, in time of war, theyeither cast behind their backs or gave over to the baggage-bearers; while they cast away all protection to their breasts,and exposed their bodies to every peril, offering battle withdrawn swords.  The most illustrious of these were Tolkar and Ymi.After these, Toki of the province of Wohin was conspicuoustogether with Otrit surnamed the Young.  Hetha, guarded by aretinue of very active men, brought an armed company to the war,the chiefs of whom were Grim and Grenzli; next to whom are namedGeir the Livonian, Hame also and Hunger, Humbli and Biari,bravest of the princes.  These men often fought duelssuccessfully, and won famous victories far and wide.

The maidens I have named, in fighting as well as courteous array,led their land-forces to the battle-field.  Thus the Danish armymustered company by company.  There were seven kings, equal inspirit but differing in allegiance, some defending Harald, andsome Ring.  Moreover, the following went to the side of Harald:Homi and Hosathul (Eysothul?), Him...., Hastin and Hythin (Hedin)the Slight, also Dahar (Dag), named Grenski, and Harald Olafssonalso.  From the province of Aland came Har and Herlewar(Herleif), with Hothbrodd, surnamed the Furious; these fought inthe Danish camp.  But from Imisland arrived Humnehy (?) andHarald.  They were joined by Haki and by Sigmund and Serker thesons of Bemon, all coming from the North.  All these wereretainers of the king, who befriended them most generously; forthey were held in the highest distinction by him, receivingswords adorned with gold, and the choicest spoils of war.  Therecame also.... the sons of Gandal the old, who were in theintimate favour of Harald by reason of ancient allegiance.  Thusthe sea was studded with the Danish fleet, and seemed tointerpose a bridge, uniting Zealand to Skaane.  To those thatwished to pass between those provinces, the sea offered a shortroad on foot over the dense mass of ships.  But Harald would nothave the Swedes unprepared in their arrangements for war, andsent men to Ring to carry his public declaration of hostilities,and notify the rupture of the mediating peace.  The same men weredirected to prescribe the place of combat.  These then whom Ihave named were the fighters for Harald.

Now, on the side of Ring were numbered Ulf, Aggi (Aki?), Windar(Eywind?), Egil the One-eyed; Gotar, Hildi, Guti Alfsson; Styrthe Stout, and (Tolo-) Stein, who lived by the Wienic Mere.  Tothese were joined Gerd the Glad and Gromer (Glum?) from Wermland.After these are reckoned the dwellers north on the Elbe, Saxo theSplitter, Sali the Goth; Thord the Stumbler, Throndar Big-nose;Grundi, Oddi, Grindir, Tovi; Koll, Biarki, Hogni the Clever,Rokar the Swart.  Now these scorned fellowship with the commonsoldiers, and had formed themselves into a separate rank apartfrom the rest of the company.  Besides these are numbered HraniHildisson and Lyuth Guthi (Hljot Godi), Svein the Topshorn,(Soknarsoti?), Rethyr (Hreidar?) Hawk, and Rolf the Uxorious(Woman-lover).  Massed with these were Ring Adilsson and Haraldwho came from Thotn district.  Joined to these were Walstein ofWick, Thorolf the Thick, Thengel the Tall, Hun, Solwe, Birwil thePale, Borgar and Skumbar (Skum).  But from, Tellemark came thebravest of all, who had most courage but least arrogance --Thorleif the Stubborn, Thorkill the Gute (Gothlander), Grettirthe Wicked and the Lover of Invasions.  Next to these came Haddthe Hard and Rolder (Hroald) Toe-joint.

From Norway we have the names of Thrand of Throndhjem, Thoke(Thore) of More, Hrafn the White, Haf (war), Biarni, Blihar(Blig?) surnamed Snub-nosed; Biorn from the district of Sogni;Findar (Finn) born in the Firth; Bersi born in the town F(I)alu;Siward Boarhead, Erik the Story-teller, Holmstein the White, HrutRawi (or Vafi, the Doubter), Erling surnamed Snake.  Now from theprovince of Jather came Odd the Englishman, Alf the Far-wanderer,Enar the Paunched, and Ywar surnamed Thriug.  Now from Thule(Iceland) came Mar the Red, born and bred in the district calledMidfirth; Grombar the Aged, Gram Brundeluk (Bryndalk?) Grim fromthe town of Skier (um) born in Skagafiord.  Next came Berg theSeer, accompanied by Bragi and Rafnkel.

Now the bravest of the Swedes were these: Arwakki, Keklu-Karl(Kelke-Karl), Krok the Peasant, (from Akr), Gudfast and Gummifrom Gislamark.  These were kindred of the god Frey, and mostfaithful witnesses to the gods.  Ingi (Yngwe) also, and Oly,Alver, Folki, all sons of Elrik (Alrek), embraced the service ofRing; they were men ready of hand, quick in counsel, and veryclose friends of Ring.  They likewise held the god Frey to be thefounder of their race.  Amongst these from the town of Sigtunalso came Sigmund, a champion advocate, versed in makingcontracts of sale and purchase; besides him Frosti surnamed Bowl:allied with him was Alf the Lofty (Proud?) from the district ofUpsala; this man was a swift spear-thrower, and used to go in thefront of the battle.

Ole had a body-guard in which were seven kings, very ready ofhand and of counsel; namely, Holti, Hendil, Holmar, Lewy (Leif),and Hame; with these was enrolled Regnald the Russian, thegrandson of Radbard; and Siwald also furrowed the sea with elevenlight ships.  Lesy (Laesi), the conqueror of the Pannonians(Huns), fitted with a sail his swift galley ringed with gold.Thririkar (Erik Helsing) sailed in a ship whose prows weretwisted like a dragon.  Also Thrygir (Tryggve) and Torwil sailedand brought twelve ships jointly.  In the entire fleet of Ringthere were 2,500 ships.

The fleet of Gotland was waiting for the Swedish fleet in theharbour named Garnum.  So Ring led the land-force, while Ole wasinstructed to command the fleet.  Now the Goths were appointed atime and a place between Wik and Werund for the conflict with theSwedes.  Then was the sea to be seen furrowed up with prows, andthe canvas unfurled upon the masts cut off the view over theocean.  The Danes had so far been distressed with bad weather;but the Swedish fleet had a fair voyage, and had reached thescene of battle earlier.  Here Ring disembarked his forces fromhis fleet, and then massed and prepared to draw up in line boththese and the army he had himself conducted overland.  When theseforces were at first loosely drawn up over the open country, itwas found that one wing reached all the way to Werund.  Themultitude was confused in its places and ranks; but the king roderound it, and posted in the van all the smartest and mostexcellently-armed men, led by Ole, Regnald, and Wivil; then hemassed the rest of the army on the two wings in a kind of curve.Ung, with the sons of Alrek, and Trig, he ordered to protect theright wing, while the left was put under the command of Laesi.Moreover, the wings and the masses were composed mainly of aclose squadron of Kurlanders and of Esthonians.  Last stood theline of slingers.

Meantime the Danish fleet, favoured by kindly winds, sailed,without stopping, for twelve days, and came to the town (stead)of Kalmar.  The wind-blown sails covering the waters were amarvel; and the canvas stretched upon the yards blotted out thesight of the heavens.  For the fleet was augmented by the Sclavsand the Livonians and 7,000 Saxons.  But the Skanians, knowingthe country, were appointed as guides and scouts to those whowere going over the dry land.  So when the Danish army came uponthe Swedes, who stood awaiting them, Ring told his men to standquietly until Harald had drawn up his line of battle; biddingthem not to sound the signal before they saw the king settled inhis chariot beside the standards; for he said he should hope thatan army would soon come to grief which trusted in the leading ofa blind man.  Harald, moreover, he said, had been seized inextreme age with the desire of foreign empire, and was as witlessas he was sightless; wealth could not satisfy a man who, if helooked to his years, ought to be well-nigh contented with agrave.  The Swedes therefore were bound to fight for theirfreedom, their country, and their children, while the enemy hadundertaken the war in rashness and arrogance.  Moreover, on theother side, there were very few Danes, but a mass of Saxons andother unmanly peoples stood arrayed.  Swedes and Norwegiansshould therefore consider, how far the multitudes of the Northhad always surpassed the Germans and the Sclavs.  They shouldtherefore despise an army which seemed to be composed more of amass of fickle offscourings than of a firm and stout soldiery.

By this harangue of King Ring he kindled high the hearts of thesoldiers.  Now Brun, being instructed to form the line onHarald's behalf, made the front in a wedge, posting Hetha on theright flank, putting Hakon in command of the left, and makingWisna standard-bearer.  Harald stood up in his chariot andcomplained, in as loud a voice as he could, that Ring wasrequiting his benefits with wrongs; that the man who had got hiskingdom. by Harald's own gift was now attacking him; so that Ringneither pitied an old man nor spared an uncle, but set his ownambitions before any regard for Harald's kinship or kindness.  Sohe bade the Danes remember how they had always won glory byforeign conquest, and how they were more wont to command theirneighbours than to obey them.  He adjured them not to let suchglory as theirs to be shaken by the insolence of a conquerednation, nor to suffer the empire, which he had won in the flowerof his youth, to be taken from him in his outworn age.

Then the trumpets sounded, and both sides engaged in battle withall their strength.  The sky seemed to fall suddenly on theearth, fields and woods to sink into the ground; all things wereconfounded, and old Chaos come again; heaven and earth minglingin one tempestuous turmoil, and the world rushing to universalruin.  For, when the spear-throwing began, the intolerable clashof arms filled the air with an incredible thunder.  The steam ofthe wounds suddenly hung a mist over the sky, the daylight washidden under the hail of spears.  The help of the slingers was ofgreat use in the battle.  But when the missiles had all beenflung from hand or engines, they fought with swords or iron-shodmaces; and it was now at close quarters that most blood wasspilt.  Then the sweat streamed down their weary bodies, and theclash of the swords could be heard afar.

Starkad, who was the first to set forth the history of this warin the telling, fought foremost in the fray, and relates that heoverthrew the nobles of Harald, Hun and Elli, Hort and Burgha,and cut off the right hand of Wisna.  He also relates that oneRoa, with two others, Gnepie and Gardar, fell wounded by him inthe field.  To these he adds the father of Skalk, whose name isnot given.  He also declares that he cast Hakon, the bravest ofthe Danes, to the earth, but received from him such a wound inreturn that he had to leave the war with his lung protruding fromhis chest, his neck cleft to the centre, and his hand deprived ofone finger; so that he long had a gaping wound, which seemed asif it would never either scar over or be curable.  The same manwitnesses that the maiden Weghbiorg (Webiorg) fought against theenemy and felled Soth the champion.  While she was threatening toslay more champions, she was pierced through by an arrow from thebowstring of Thorkill, a native of Tellemark.  For the skilledarchers of the Gotlanders strung their bows so hard that theshafts pierced through even the shields; nothing proved moremurderous; for the arrow-points made their way through hauberkand helmet as if they were men's defenceless bodies.

Meanwhile Ubbe the Frisian, who was the readiest of Harald'ssoldiers, and of notable bodily stature, slew twenty-five pickedchampions, besides eleven whom he had wounded in the field.  Allthese were of Swedish or Gothic blood.  Then he attacked thevanguard and burst into the thickest of the enemy, driving theSwedes struggling in a panic every way with spear and sword.  Ithad all but come to a flight, when Hagder (Hadd), Rolder(Hroald), and Grettir attacked the champion, emulating hisvalour, and resolving at their own risk to retrieve the generalruin.  But, fearing to assault him at close quarters, theyaccomplished their end with arrows from afar; and thus Ubbe wasriddled by a shower of arrows, no one daring to fight him hand tohand.  A hundred and forty-four arrows had pierced the breast ofthe warrior before his bodily strength failed and he bent hisknee to the earth.  Then at last the Danes suffered a greatdefeat, owing to the Thronds and the dwellers in the province ofDala.  For the battle began afresh by reason of the vast mass ofthe archers, and nothing damaged our men more.

But when Harald, being now blind with age, heard the lamentablemurmur of his men, he perceived that fortune had smiled on hisenemies.  So, as he was riding in a chariot armed with scythes,he told Brun, who was treacherously acting as charioteer, to findout in what manner Ring had his line drawn up.  Brun's facerelaxed into something of a smile, and he answered that he wasfighting with a line in the form of a wedge.  When the king heardthis he began to be alarmed, and to ask in great astonishmentfrom whom Ring could have learnt this method of disposing hisline, especially as Odin was the discoverer and imparter of thisteaching, and none but himself had ever learnt from him this newpattern of warfare.  At this Brun was silent, and it came intothe king's mind that here was Odin, and that the god whom he hadonce known so well was now disguised in a changeful shape, inorder either to give help or withhold it.  Presently he began tobeseech him earnestly to grant the final victory to the Danes,since he had helped them so graciously before, and to fill up hislast kindness to the measure of the first; promising to dedicateto him as a gift the spirits of all who fell.  But Brun, utterlyunmoved by his entreaties, suddenly jerked the king out of thechariot, battered him to the earth, plucked the club from him ashe fell, whirled it upon his head, and slew him with his ownweapon.  Countless corpses lay round the king's chariot, and thehorrid heap overtopped the wheels; the pile of carcases rose ashigh as the pole.  For about 12,000 of the nobles of Ring fellupon the field.  But on the side of Harald about 30,000 noblesfell, not to name the slaughter of the commons.

When Ring heard that Harald was dead, he gave the signal to hismen to break up their line and cease fighting.  Then under coverof truce he made treaty with the enemy, telling them that it wasvain to prolong the fray without their captain.  Next he told theSwedes to look everywhere among the confused piles of carcasesfor the body of Harald, that the corpse of the king might notwrongfully lack its due rights.  So the populace set eagerly tothe task of turning over the bodies of the slain, and over thiswork half the day was spent.  At last the body was found with theclub, and he thought that propitiation should be made to theshade of Harald.  So he harnessed the horse on which he rode tothe chariot of the king, decked it honourably with a goldensaddle, and hallowed it in his honour.  Then he proclaimed hisvows, and added his prayer that Harald would ride on this andoutstrip those who shared his death in their journey to Tartarus;and that he would pray Pluto, the lord of Orcus, to grant a calmabode there for friend and foe.  Then he raised a pyre, and badethe Danes fling on the gilded chariot of their king as fuel tothe fire.  And while the flames were burning the body cast uponthem, he went round the mourning nobles and earnestly chargedthem that they should freely give arms, gold, and every preciousthing to feed the pyre in honour of so great a king, who haddeserved so nobly of them all.  He also ordered that the ashes ofhis body, when it was quite burnt, should be transferred to anurn, taken to Leire, and there, together with the horse andarmour, receive a royal funeral.  By paying these due rites ofhonour to his uncle's shade, he won the favour of the Danes, andturned the hate of his enemies into goodwill.  Then the Danesbesought him to appoint Hetha over the remainder of the realm;but, that the fallen strength of the enemy might not suddenlyrally, he severed Skaane from the mass of Denmark, and put itseparately under the governorship of Ole, ordering that onlyZealand and the other lands of the realm should be subject toHetha.  Thus the changes of fortune brought the empire of Denmarkunder the Swedish rule.  So ended the Bravic war.

But the Zealanders, who had had Harald for their captain, andstill had the picture of their former fortune hovering beforetheir minds, thought it shameful to obey the rule of a woman, andappealed to OLE not to suffer men that had been used to serveunder a famous king to be kept under a woman's yoke.  They alsopromised to revolt to him if he would take up arms to removetheir ignominious lot.  Ole, tempted as much by the memory of hisancestral glory as by the homage of the soldiers, was not slow toanswer their entreaties.  So he summoned Hetha, and forced her bythreats rather than by arms to quit every region under hercontrol except Jutland; and even Jutland he made a tributarystate, so as not to allow a woman the free control of a kingdom.He also begot a son whom he named Omund.  But he was given tocruelty, and showed himself such an unrighteous king, that allwho had found it a shameful thing to be ruled by a queen nowrepented of their former scorn.

Twelve generals, whether moved by the disasters of their country,or hating Ole for some other reason, began to plot against hislife.  Among these were Hlenni, Atyl, Thott, and Withne, the lastof whom was a Dane by birth, though he held a government amongthe Sclavs.  Moreover, not trusting in their strength and theircunning to accomplish their deed, they bribed Starkad to jointhem.  He was prevailed to do the deed with the sword; heundertook the bloody work, and resolved to attack the king whileat the bath.  In he went while the king was washing, but wasstraightway stricken by the keenness of his gaze and by therestless and quivering glare of his eyes.  His limbs were palsiedwith sudden dread; he paused, stepped back, and stayed his handand his purpose.  Thus he who had shattered the arms of so manycaptains and champions could not bear the gaze of a singleunarmed man.  But Ole, who well knew about his own countenance,covered his face, and asked him to come closer and tell him whathis message was; for old fellowship and long-tried friendshipmade him the last to suspect treachery.  But Starkad drew hissword, leapt forward, thrust the king through, and struck him inthe throat as he tried to rise.  One hundred and twenty marks ofgold were kept for his reward.  Soon afterwards he was smittenwith remorse and shame, and lamented his crime so bitterly, thathe could not refrain from tears if it happened to be named.  Thushis soul, when he came to his senses, blushed for his abominablesin.  Moreover, to atone for the crime he had committed, he slewsome of those who had inspired him to it, thus avenging the actto which he had lent his hand.

Now the Danes made OMUND, the son of Ole, king, thinking thatmore heed should be paid to his father's birth than to hisdeserts.  Omund, when he had grown up, fell in nowise behind theexploits of his father; for he made it his aim to equal orsurpass the deeds of Ole.

At this time a considerable tribe of the Northmen (Norwegians)was governed by Ring, and his daughter Esa's great fame commendedher to Omund, who was looking out for a wife.

But his hopes of wooing her were lessened by the peculiarinclination of Ring, who desired no son-in-law but one of triedvalour; for he found as much honour in arms as others think liesin wealth.  Omund therefore, wishing to become famous in thatfashion, and to win the praise of valour, endeavoured to gain hisdesire by force, and sailed to Norway with a fleet, to make anattempt on the throne of Ring under plea of hereditary right. Odd, the chief of Jather, who declared that Ring had assuredlyseized his inheritance, and lamented that he harried him withcontinual wrongs, received Omund kindly.  Ring, in the meantime,was on a roving raid in Ireland, so that Omund attacked aprovince without a defender.  Sparing the goods of the commonpeople, he gave the private property of Ring over to beplundered, and slew his kinsfolk; Odd also having joined hisforces to Omund.  Now, among all his divers and manifold deeds,he could never bring himself to attack an inferior force,remembering that he was the son of a most valiant father, andthat he was bound to fight armed with courage, and not withnumbers.

Meanwhile Ring had returned from roving; and when Omund heard hewas back, he set to and built a vast ship, whence, as from afortress, he could rain his missiles on the enemy.  To managethis ship he enlisted Homod and Thole the rowers, the soils ofAtyl the Skanian, one of whom was instructed to act as steersman,while the other was to command at the prow.  Ring lacked neitherskill nor. dexterity to encounter them.  For he showed only asmall part of his forces, and caused the enemy to be attacked onthe rear.  Omund, when told of his strategy by Odd, sent men tooverpower those posted in ambush, telling Atyl the Skanian toencounter Ring.  The order was executed with more rashness thansuccess; and Atyl, with his power defeated and shattered, fledbeaten to Skaane.  Then Omund recruited his forces with the helpof Odd, and drew up his fleet to fight on the open sea.

Atyl at this time had true visions of the Norwegian war in hisdreams, and started on his voyage in order to make up for hisflight as quickly as possible, and delighted Omund by joining himon the eve of battle.  Trusting in his help, Omund began to fightwith equal confidence and success.  For, by fighting himself, heretrieved the victory which he had lost when his servants wereengaged.  Ring, wounded to the death, gazed at him with fainteyes, and, beckoning to him with his hand, as well as he could --for his voice failed him -- he besought him to be his son-in-law,saying that he would gladly meet his end if he left his daughterto such a husband.  Before he could receive an answer he died. Omund wept for his death, and gave Homod, whose trusty help hehad received in the war, in marriage to one of the daughters ofRing, taking the other himself.

At the same time the amazon Rusla, whose prowess in warfareexceeded the spirit of a woman, had many fights in Norway withher brother, Thrond, for the sovereignty.  She could not endurethat Omund rule over the Norwegians, and she had declared waragainst all the subjects of the Danes.  Omund, when he heard ofthis, commissioned his most active men to suppress the rising.Rusla conquered them, and, waxing haughty on her triumph, wasseized with overweening hopes, and bent her mind upon actuallyacquiring the sovereignty of Denmark.  She began her attack onthe region of Halland, but was met by Homod and Thode, whom theking had sent over.  Beaten, she retreated to her fleet, of whichonly thirty ships managed to escape, the rest being taken by theenemy.  Thrond encountered his sister as she was eluding theDanes, but was conquered by her and stripped of his entire army;he fled over the Dovrefjeld without a single companion.  Thusshe, who had first yielded before the Danes, soon overcame herbrother, and turned her flight into a victory.  When Omund heardof this, he went back to Norway with a great fleet, first sendingHomod and Thole by a short and secret way to rouse the people ofTellemark against the rule of Rusla.  The end was that she wasdriven out of her kingdom by the commons, fled to the isles forsafety, and turned her back, without a blow, upon the Danes asthey came up.  The king pursued her hotly, caught up her fleet onthe sea, and utterly destroyed it, the enemy suffered mightily,and he won a bloodless victory and splendid spoils.  But Ruslaescaped with a very few ships, and rowed ploughing the wavesfuriously; but, while she was avoiding the Danes, she met herbrother and was killed.  So much more effectual for harm aredangers unsurmised; and chance sometimes makes the less alarmingevil worse than that which threatens.  The king gave Thrond agovernorship for slaying his sister, put the rest under tribute,and returned home.

At this time Thorias (?) and Ber (Biorn), the most active of thesoldiers of Rusla, were roving in Ireland; but when they heard ofthe death of their mistress, whom they had long ago sworn toavenge, they hotly attacked Omund, and challenged him to a duel,which it used to be accounted shameful for a king to refuse; forthe fame of princes of old was reckoned more by arms than byriches.  So Homod and Thole came forward, offering to meet inbattle the men who had challenged the king.  Omund praised themwarmly, but at first declined for very shame to allow their help.At last, hard besought by his people, he brought himself to tryhis fortune by the hand of another.  We are told that Ber fell inthis combat, while Thorias left the battle severely wounded.  Theking, having first cured him of his wounds, took him into hisservice, and made him prince (earl) over Norway.  Then he sentambassadors to exact the usual tribute from the Sclavs; thesewere killed, and he was even attacked in Jutland by a Sclavishforce; but he overcame seven kings in a single combat, andratified by conquest his accustomed right to tribute.

Meantime, Starkad, who was now worn out with extreme age, and whoseemed to be past military service and the calling of a champion,was loth to lose his ancient glory through the fault of eld, andthought it would be a noble thing if he could make a voluntaryend, and hasten his death by his own free will.  Having so oftenfought nobly, he thought it would be mean to die a bloodlessdeath; and, wishing to enhance the glory of his past life by thelustre of his end, he preferred to be slain by some man ofgallant birth rather than await the tardy shaft of nature.  Soshameful was it thought that men devoted to war should die bydisease.  His body was weak, and his eyes could not see clearly,so that he hated to linger any more in life.  In order to buyhimself an executioner, he wore hanging on his neck the goldwhich he had earned for the murder of Ole; thinking there was nofitter way of atoning for the treason he had done than to makethe price of Ole's death that of his own also, and to spend onthe loss of his own life what he had earned by the slaying ofanother.  This, he thought, would be the noblest use he couldmake of that shameful price.  So he girded him with two swords,and guided his powerless steps leaning on two staves.

One of the common people, seeing him, thinking two swordssuperfluous for the use of an old man, mockingly asked him tomake him a present of one of them.  Starkad, holding out hopes ofconsent, bade him come nearer, drew the sword from his side, andran him through.  This was seen by a certain Hather, whose fatherHlenne Starkad had once killed in repentance for his own impiouscrime.  Hatfier was hunting game with his dogs, but now gave overthe chase, and bade two of his companions spur their horses hardand charge at the old man to frighten him.  They gallopedforward, and tried to make off, but were stopped by the staves ofStarkad, and paid for it with their lives.  Hather, terrified bythe sight, galloped up closer, and saw who the old man was, butwithout being recognized by him in turn; and asked him if hewould like to exchange his sword for a carriage.  Starkad repliedthat he used in old days to chastise jeerers, and that theinsolent had never insulted him unpunished.  But his sightlesseyes could not recognize the features of the youth; so hecomposed a song, wherein he should declare the greatness of hisanger, as follows:

"As the unreturning waters sweep down the channel; so, as theyears run by, the life of man flows on never to come back; fastgallops the cycle of doom, child of old age who shall make an endof all.  Old age smites alike the eyes and the steps of men, robsthe warrior of his speech and soul, tarnishes his fame by slowdegrees, and wipes out his deeds of honour.  It seizes hisfailing limbs, chokes his panting utterance, and numbs his nimblewit.  When a cough is taken, when the skin itches with the scab,and the teeth are numb and hollow, and the stomach turnssqueamish, -- then old age banishes the grace of youth, coversthe complexion with decay, and sows many a wrinkle in the duskyskin.  Old age crushes noble arts, brings down the memorials ofmen of old, and scorches ancient glories up; shatters wealth,hungrily gnaws away the worth and good of virtue, turns athwartand disorders all things.

"I myself have felt the hurtful power of injurious age, I,dim-sighted, and hoarse in my tones and in my chest; and allhelpful things have turned to my hurt.  Now my body is lessnimble, and I prop it up, leaning my faint limbs on the supportof staves.  Sightless I guide my steps with two sticks, andfollow the short path which the rod shows me, trusting more inthe leading of a stock than in my eyes.  None takes any charge ofme, and no man in the ranks brings comfort to the veteran,unless, perchance, Hather is here, and succours his shatteredfriend.  Whomsoever Hather once thinks worthy of his duteouslove, that man he attends continually with even zeal, constant tohis purpose, and fearing to break his early ties.  He also oftenpays fit rewards to those that have deserved well in war, andfosters their courage; he bestows dignities on the brave, andhonours his famous friends with gifts.  Free with his wealth, heis fain to increase with bounty the brightness of his name, andto surpass many of the mighty.  Nor is he less in war: hisstrength is equal to his goodness; he is swift in the fray, slowto waver, ready to give battle; and he cannot turn his back whenthe foe bears him hard.  But for me, if I remember right, fateappointed at my birth that wars I should follow and in war Ishould die, that I should mix in broils, watch in arms, and passa life of bloodshed.  I was a man of camps, and rested not;hating peace, I grew old under thy standard, O War-god, in utmostperil; conquering fear, I thought it comely to fight, shameful toloiter, and noble to kill and kill again, to be for everslaughtering!  Oft have I seen the stern kings meet in war, seenshield and helmet bruised, and the fields redden with blood, andthe cuirass broken by the spear-point, and the corselets allaround giving at the thrust of the steel, and the wild beastsbattening on the unburied soldier.  Here, as it chanced, one thatattempted a mighty thing, a strong-handed warrior, fightingagainst the press of the foe, smote through the mail that coveredmy head, pierced my helmet, and plunged his blade into my crest.This sword also hath often been driven by my right hand in war,and, once unsheathed, hath cleft the skin and bitten into theskull."

Hather, in answer, sang as follows:

"Whence comest thou, who art used to write the poems of thy land,leaning thy wavering steps on a frail staff?  Or whither dostthou speed, who art the readiest bard of the Danish muse?  Allthe glory of thy great strength is faded and lost; the hue isbanished from thy face, the joy is gone out of thy soul; thevoice has left thy throat, and is hoarse and dull; thy body haslost its former stature; the decay of death begins, and haswasted thy features and thy force.  As a ship wearies, buffetedby continual billows, even so old age, gendered by a long courseof years, brings forth bitter death; and the life falls when itsstrength is done, and suffers the loss of its ancient lot. Famous old man, who has told thee that thou mayst not duly followthe sports of youth, or fling balls, or bite and eat the nut?  Ithink it were better for thee now to sell thy sword, and buy acarriage wherein to ride often, or a horse easy on the bit, or atthe same cost to purchase a light cart.  It will be more fittingfor beasts of burden to carry weak old men, when their steps failthem; the wheel, driving round and round, serves for him whosefoot totters feebly.  But if perchance thou art loth to sell theuseless steel, thy sword, if it be not for sale, shall be takenfrom thee and shall slay thee."

Starkad answered: "Wretch, thy glib lips scatter idle words,unfit for the ears of the good.  Why seek the gifts to rewardthat guidance, which thou shouldst have offered for naught?Surely I will walk afoot, and will not basely give up my swordand buy the help of a stranger; nature has given me the right ofpassage, and hath bidden me trust in my own feet.  Why mock andjeer with insolent speech at him whom thou shouldst have offeredto guide upon his way?  Why give to dishonour my deeds of old,which deserve the memorial of fame?  Why requite my service withreproach?  Why pursue with jeers the old man mighty in battle,and put to shame my unsurpassed honours and illustrious deeds,belittling my glories and girding at my prowess?  For what valourof thine dost thou demand my sword, which thy strength does notdeserve?  It befits not the right hand or the unwarlike side of aherdsman, who is wont to make his peasant-music on the pipe, tosee to the flock, to keep the herds in the fields.  Surely amongthe henchmen, close to the greasy pot, thou dippest thy crust inthe bubbles of the foaming pan, drenching a meagre slice in therich, oily fat, and stealthily, with thirsty finger, licking thewarm juice; more skilled to spread thy accustomed cloak on theashes, to sleep on the hearth, and slumber all day long, and gobusily about the work of the reeking kitchen, than to make thebrave blood flow with thy shafts in war.  Men think thee a haterof the light and a lover of a filthy hole, a wretched slave ofthy belly, like a whelp who licks the coarse grain, husk and all.

"By heaven, thou didst not try to rob me of my sword when thriceat great peril I fought (for?) the son of Ole.  For truly, inthat array, my hand either broke the sword or shattered theobstacle, so heavy was the blow of the smiter.  What of the daywhen I first taught them, to run with wood-shod feet over theshore of the Kurlanders, and the path bestrewn with countlesspoints?  For when I was going to the fields studded withcalthrops, I guarded their wounded feet with clogs below them.After this I slew Hame, who fought me mightily; and soon, withthe captain Rin the son of Flebak, I crushed the Kurlanders, yea,or all the tribes Esthonia breeds, and thy peoples, O Semgala!Then I attacked the men of Tellemark, and took thence my headbloody with bruises, shattered with mallets, and smitten with thewelded weapons.  Here first I learnt how strong was the ironwrought on the anvil, or what valour the common people had.  Alsoit was my doing that the Teutons were punished, when, in avengingmy lord, I laid low over their cups thy sons, O Swerting, whowere guilty of the wicked slaughter of Frode.

"Not less was the deed when, for the sake of a beloved maiden, Islew nine brethren in one fray; -- witness the spot, which wasconsumed by the bowels that left me, and brings not forth thegrain anew on its scorched sod.  And soon, when Ker the captainmade ready a war by sea, with a noble army we beat his serriedships.  Then I put Waske to death, and punished the insolentsmith by slashing his hinder parts; and with the sword I slewWisin, who from the snowy rocks blunted the spears.  Then I slewthe four sons of Ler, and the champions of Permland; and thenhaving taken the chief of the Irish race, I rifled the wealth ofDublin; and our courage shall ever remain manifest by thetrophies of Bravalla.  Why do I linger?  Countless are the deedsof my bravery, and when I review the works of my hands I fail tonumber them to the full.  The whole is greater than I can tell.My work is too great for fame, and speech serves not for mydoings."

So sang Starkad.  At last, when he found by their talk thatHather was the son of Hlenne, and saw that the youth was ofillustrious birth, he offered him his throat to smite, biddinghim not to shrink from punishing the slayer of his father.  Hepromised him that if he did so he should possess the gold whichhe had himself received from Hlenne.  And to enrage his heartmore vehemently against him, he is said to have harangued him asfollows:

"Moreover, Hather, I robbed thee of thy father Hlenne; requite methis, I pray, and strike down the old man who longs to die; aimat my throat with the avenging steel.  For my soul chooses theservice of a noble smiter, and shrinks to ask its doom at acoward's hand.  Righteously may a man choose to forstall theordinance of doom.  What cannot be escaped it will be lawful alsoto anticipate.  The fresh tree must be fostered, the old one hewndown.  He is nature's instrument who destroys what is near itsdoom and strikes down what cannot stand.  Death is best when itis sought: and when the end is loved, life is wearisome.  Let notthe troubles of age prolong a miserable lot."

So saying, he took money from his pouch and gave it him.  ButHather, desiring as much to enjoy the gold as to accomplishvengeance for his father, promised that he would comply with hisprayer, and would not refuse the reward.  Starkad eagerly handedhim the sword, and at once stooped his neck beneath it,counselling him not to do the smiter's work timidly, or use thesword like a woman; and telling him that if, when he had killedhim, he could spring between the head and the trunk before thecorpse fell, he would be rendered proof against arms.  It is notknown whether he said this in order to instruct his executioneror to punish him, for perhaps, as he leapt, the bulk of the hugebody would have crushed him.  So Hather smote sharply with thesword and hacked off the head of the old man.  When the severedhead struck the ground, it is said to have bitten the earth; thusthe fury of the dying lips declared the fierceness of the soul.But the smiter, thinking that the promise hid some treachery,warily refrained from leaping.  Had he done so rashly, perhaps hewould have been crushed by the corpse as it fell, and have paidwith his own life for the old man's murder.  But he would notallow so great a champion to lie unsepulchred, and had his bodyburied in the field that is commonly called Rolung.

Now Omund, as I have heard, died most tranquilly, while peace wasunbroken, leaving two sons and two daughters.  The eldest ofthese, SIWARD, came to the throne by right of birth, while hisbrother Budle was still of tender years.  At this time Gotar,King of the Swedes, conceived boundless love for one of thedaughters of Omund, because of the report of her extraordinarybeauty, and entrusted one Ebb, the son of Sibb, with thecommission of asking for the maiden.  Ebb did his work skilfully,and brought back the good news that the girl had consented.Nothing was now lacking to Gotar's wishes but the wedding; but,as he feared to hold this among strangers, he demanded that hisbetrothed should be sent to him in charge of Ebb, whom he hadbefore used as envoy.

Ebb was crossing Halland with a very small escort, and went for anight's lodging to a country farm, where the dwellings of twobrothers faced one another on the two sides of a river.  Nowthese men used to receive folk hospitably and then murder them,but were skilful to hide their brigandage under a show ofgenerosity.  For they had hung on certain hidden chains, in alofty part of the house, an oblong beam like a press, andfurnished it with a steel point; they used to lower this in thenight by letting down the fastenings, and cut off the heads ofthose that lay below.  Many had they beheaded in this way withthe hanging mass.  So when Ebb and his men had been feastedabundantly, the servants laid them out a bed near the hearth, sothat by the swing of the treacherous beam they might mow offtheir heads, which faced the fire.  When they departed, Ebb,suspecting the contrivance slung overhead, told his men to feignslumber and shift their bodies, saying that it would be verywholesome for them to change their place.

Now among these were some who despised the orders which theothers obeyed, and lay unmoved, each in the spot where he hadchanced to lie down.  Then towards the mirk of night the heavyhanging machine was set in motion by the doers of the treachery.Loosened from the knots of its fastening, it fell violently onthe ground, and slew those beneath it.  Thereupon those who hadthe charge of committing the crime brought in a light, that theymight learn clearly what had happened, and saw that Ebb, on whoseespecial account they had undertaken the affair, had wisely beenequal to the danger.  He straightway set on them and punishedthem with death; and also, after losing his men in the mutualslaughter, he happened to find a vessel, crossed a river full ofblocks of ice, and announced to Gotar the result, not so much ofhis mission as of his mishap.

Gotar judged that this affair had been inspired by Siward, andprepared to avenge his wrongs by arms.  Siward, defeated by himin Halland, retreated into Jutland, the enemy having taken hissister.  Here he conquered the common people of the Sclavs, whoventured to fight without a leader; and he won as much honourfrom this victory as he had got disgrace by his flight.  But alittle afterwards, the men whom he had subdued when they wereungeneraled, found a general and defeated Siward in Funen. Several times he fought them in Jutland, but with ill-success. The result was that he lost both Skaane and Jutland, and onlyretained the middle of his realm without the head, like thefragments of some body that had been consumed away.  His sonJarmerik (Eormunrec), with his child-sisters, fell into the handsof the enemy; one of these was sold to the Germans, the other tothe Norwegians; for in old time marriages were matters ofpurchase.  Thus the kingdom of the Danes, which had been enlargedwith such valour, made famous by such ancestral honours, andenriched by so many conquests, fell, all by the sloth of one man,from the most illustrious fortune and prosperity into suchdisgrace that it paid the tribute which it used to exact.  ButSiward, too often defeated and guilty of shameful flights, couldnot endure, after that glorious past, to hold the troubled helmof state any longer in this shameful condition of his land; and,fearing that living longer might strip him of his last shred ofglory, he hastened to win an honourable death in battle.  For hissoul could not forget his calamity, it was fain to cast off itssickness, and was racked with weariness of life.  So much did heabhor the light of life in his longing to wipe out his shame.  Sohe mustered his army for battle, and openly declared war with oneSimon, who was governor of Skaane under Gotar.  This war hepursued with stubborn rashness; he slew Simon, and ended his ownlife amid a great slaughter of his foes.  Yet his country couldnot be freed from the burden of the tribute.

Jarmerik, meantime, with his foster-brother of the same age ashimself, Gunn, was living in prison, in charge of Ismar, the Kingof the Sclavs.  At last he was taken out and put to agriculture,doing the work of a peasant.  So actively did he manage thismatter that he was transferred and made master of the royalslaves.  As he likewise did this business most uprightly, he wasenrolled in the band of the king's retainers.  Here he borehimself most pleasantly as courtiers use, and was soon taken intothe number of the king's friends and obtained the first place inhis intimacy; thus, on the strength of a series of greatservices, he passed from the lowest estate to the mostdistinguished height of honour.  Also, loth to live a slack andenfeebled youth, he trained himself to the pursuits of war,enriching his natural gifts by diligence.  All men lovedJarmerik, and only the queen mistrusted the young man's temper. A sudden report told them that the king's brother had died.Ismar, wishing to give his body a splendid funeral, prepared abanquet of royal bounty to increase the splendour of theobsequies.

But Jarmerik, who used at other times to look after the householdaffairs together with the queen, began to cast about for means ofescape; for a chance seemed to be offered by the absence of theking.  For he saw that even in the lap of riches he would be thewretched thrall of a king, and that he would draw, as it were,his very breath on sufferance and at the gift of another. Moreover, though he held the highest offices with the king, hethought that freedom was better than delights, and burned with amighty desire to visit his country and learn his lineage.  But,knowing that the queen had provided sufficient guards to see thatno prisoner escaped, he saw that he must approach by craft wherehe could not arrive by force.  So he plaited one of those basketsof rushes and withies, shaped like a man, with which countrymenused to scare the birds from the corn, and put a live dog in it;then he took off his own clothes, and dressed it in them, to givea more plausible likeness to a human being.  Then he broke intothe private treasury of the king, took out the money, and hidhimself in places of which he alone knew.

Meantime Gunn, whom he had told to conceal the absence of hisfriend, took the basket into the palace and stirred up the dog tobark; and when the queen asked what this was, he answered thatJarmerik was out of his mind and howling.  She, beholding theeffigy, was deceived by the likeness, and ordered that the madmanshould be cast out of the house.  Then Gunn took the effigy outand put it to bed, as though it were his distraught friend.  Buttowards night he plied the watch bountifully with wine and festalmirth, cut off their heads as they slept, and set them at theirgroins, in order to make their slaying more shameful.  The queen,roused by the din, and wishing to learn the reason of it, hastilyrushed to the doors.  But while she unwarily put forth her head,the sword of Gunn suddenly pierced her through.  Feeling a mortalwound, she sank, turned her eyes on her murderer, and said, "Hadit been granted me to live unscathed, no screen or treacheryshould have let thee leave this land unpunished."  A flood ofsuch threats against her slayer poured from her dying lips.

Then Jarmerik, with Gunn, the partner of his noble deed, secretlyset fire to the tent wherein the king was celebrating with abanquet the obsequies of his brother; all the company wereovercome with liquor.  The fire filled the tent and spread allabout; and some of them, shaking off the torpor of drink, tookhorse and pursued those who had endangered them.  But the youngmen fled at first on the beasts they had taken; and at last, whenthese were exhausted with their long gallop, took to flight onfoot.  They were all but caught, when a river saved them.  Forthey crossed a bridge, of which, in order to delay the pursuer,they first cut the timbers down to the middle, thus making it notonly unequal to a burden, but ready to come down; then theyretreated into a dense morass.

The Sclavs pressed on them hard and, not forseeing the danger,unwarily put the weight of their horses on the bridge; theflooring sank, and they were shaken off and flung into the river.But, as they swam up to the bank, they were met by Gunn andJarmerik, and either drowned or slain.  Thus the young men showedgreat cunning, and did a deed beyond their years, being more likesagacious old men than runaway slaves, and successfully achievingtheir shrewd design.  When they reached the strand they seized avessel chance threw in their way, and made for the deep.  Thebarbarians who pursued them, tried, when they saw them sailingoff, to bring them back by shouting promises after them that theyshould be kings if they returned; "for, by the public statute ofthe ancients, the succession was appointed to the slayers of thekings."  As they retreated, their ears were long deafened by theSclavs obstinately shouting their treacherous promises.

At this time BUDLE, the brother of Siward, was Regent over theDanes, who forced him to make over the kingdom to JARMERIK whenhe came; so that Budle fell from a king into a common man.  Atthe same time Gotar charged Sibb with debauching his sister, andslew him.  Sibb's kindred, much angered by his death, camewailing to Jarmerik, and promised to attack Gotar with him, inorder to avenge their kinsman.  They kept their promise well, forJarmerik, having overthrown Gotar by their help, gained Sweden.Thus, holding the sovereignty of both nations, he was encouragedby his increased power to attack the Sclavs, forty of whom hetook and hung with a wolf tied to each of them.  This kind ofpunishment was assigned of old to those who slew their ownkindred; but he chose to inflict it upon enemies, that all mightsee plainly, just from their fellowship with ruthless beasts, howgrasping they had shown themselves towards the Danes.

When Jarmerik had conquered the country, he posted garrisons inall the fitting places, and departing thence, he made a slaughterof the Sembs and the Kurlanders, and many nations of the East.The Sclavs, thinking that this employment of the king gave them achance of revolting, killed the governors whom he had appointed,and ravaged Denmark.  Jarmerik, on his way back from roving,chanced to intercept their fleet, and destroyed it, a deed whichadded honour to his roll of conquests.  He also put their noblesto death in a way that one would weep to see; namely, by firstpassing thongs through their legs, and then tying them to thehoofs of savage bulls; then hounds set on them and dragged theminto miry swamps.  This deed took the edge off the valour of theSclavs, and they obeyed the authority of the king in fear andtrembling.

Jarmerik, enriched with great spoils, wished to provide a safestorehouse for his booty, and built on a lofty hill a treasure-house of marvellous handiwork.  Gathering sods, he raised amound, laying a mass of rocks for the foundation, and girt thelower part with a rampart, the centre with rooms, and the topwith battlements.  All round he posted a line of sentries withouta break.  Four huge gates gave free access on the four sides; andinto this lordly mansion he heaped all his splendid riches.Having thus settled his affairs at home, he again turned hisambition abroad.  He began to voyage, and speedily fought a navalbattle with four brothers whom he met on the high seas,Hellespontines by race, and veteran rovers.  After this battlehad lasted three days, he ceased fighting, having bargained fortheir sister and half the tribute which they had imposed on thosethey had conquered.

After this, Bikk, the son of the King of the Livonians, escapedfrom the captivity in which he lay under these said brothers, andwent to Jarmerik.  But he did not forget his wrongs, Jarmerikhaving long before deprived him of his own brothers.  He wasreceived kindly by the king, in all whose secret counsels he sooncame to have a notable voice; and, as soon as he found the kingpliable to his advice in all things, he led him, when his counselwas asked, into the most abominable acts, and drove him to commitcrimes and infamies.  Thus he sought some device to injure theking by a feint of loyalty, and tried above all to steel himagainst his nearest of blood; attempting to accomplish therevenge of his brother by guile, since he could not by force.  Soit came to pass that the king embraced filthy vices instead ofvirtues, and made himself generally hated by the cruel deedswhich he committed at the instance of his treacherous adviser.Even the Sclavs began to rise against him; and, as a means ofquelling them, he captured their leaders, passed a rope throughtheir shanks, and delivered them to be torn asunder by horsespulling different ways.  So perished their chief men, punishedfor their stubbornness of spirit by having their bodies rentapart.  This kept the Sclavs duly obedient in unbroken and steadysubjugation.

Meantime, the sons of Jarmerik's sister, who had all been bornand bred in Germany, took up arms, on the strength of theirgrandsire's title, against their uncle, contending that they hadas good a right to the throne as he.  The king demolished theirstrongholds in Germany with engines, blockaded or took severaltowns, and returned home with a bloodless victory.  TheHellespontines came to meet him, proffering their sister for thepromised marriage.  After this had been celebrated, at Bikk'sprompting he again went to Germany, took his nephews in war, andincontinently hanged them.  He also got together the chief menunder the pretence of a banquet and had them put to death in thesame fashion.

Meantime, the king appointed Broder, his son by another marriage,to have charge over his stepmother, a duty which he fulfilledwith full vigilance and integrity.  But Bikk accused this man tohis father of incest; and, to conceal the falsehood of thecharge, suborned witnesses against him.  When the plea of theaccusation had been fully declared, Broder could not bring anysupport for his defence, and his father bade his friends passsentence upon the convicted man, thinking it less impious tocommit the punishment proper for his son to the judgment ofothers.  All thought that he deserved outlawry except Bikk, whodid not shrink from giving a more terrible vote against his life,and declaring that the perpetrator of an infamous seduction oughtto be punished with hanging.  But lest any should think that thispunishment was due to the cruelty of his father, Bikk judgedthat, when he had been put in the noose, the servants should holdhim up on a beam put beneath him, so that, when weariness madethem take their hands from the burden, they might be as good asguilty of the young man's death, and by their own fault exoneratethe king from an unnatural murder.  He also pretended that,unless the accused were punished, he would plot against hisfather's life.  The adulteress Swanhild, he said, ought to suffera shameful end, trampled under the hoofs of beasts.

The king yielded to Bikk; and, when his son was to be hanged, hemade the bystanders hold him up by means of a plank, that hemight not be choked.  Thus his throat was only a little squeezed,the knot was harmless, and it was but a punishment in show.  Butthe king had the queen tied very tight on the ground, anddelivered her to be crushed under the hoofs of horses.  The storygoes that she was so beautiful, that even the beasts shrank frommangling limbs so lovely with their filthy feet.  The king,divining that this proclaimed the innocence of his wife, began torepent of his error, and hastened to release the slandered lady.But meantime Bikk rushed up, declaring that when she was on herback she held off the beasts by awful charms, and could only becrushed if she lay on her face; for he knew that her beauty savedher.  When the body of the queen was placed in this manner, theherd of beasts was driven upon it, and trod it down deep withtheir multitude of feet.  Such was the end of Swanhild.

Meantime, the favourite dog of Broder came creeping to the kingmaking a sort of moan, and seemed to bewail its master'spunishment; and his hawk, when it was brought in, began to pluckout its breast-feathers with its beak.  The king took itsnakedness as an omen of his bereavement, to frustrate which hequickly sent men to take his son down from the noose: for hedivined by the featherless bird that he would be childless unlesshe took good heed.  Thus Broder was freed from death, and Bikk,fearing he would pay the penalty of an informer, went and toldthe men of the Hellespont that Swanhild had been abominably slainby her husband.  When they set sail to avenge their sister, hecame back to Jarmerik, and told him that the Hellespontines werepreparing war.

The king thought that it would be safer to fight with walls thanin the field, and retreated into the stronghold which he hadbuilt.  To stand the siege, he filled its inner parts withstores, and its battlements with men-at-arms.  Targets andshields flashing with gold were hung round and adorned thetopmost circle of the building.

It happened that the Hellespontines, before sharing their booty,accused a great band of their men of embezzling, and put them todeath.  Having now destroyed so large a part of their forces byinternecine slaughter, they thought that their strength was notequal to storming the palace, and consulted a sorceress namedGudrun.  She brought it to pass that the defenders of the king'sside were suddenly blinded and turned their arms against oneanother.  When the Hellespontines saw this, they brought up ashield-mantlet, and seized the approaches of the gates.  Thenthey tore up the posts, burst into the building, and hewed downthe blinded ranks of the enemy.  In this uproar Odin appeared,and, making for the thick of the ranks of the fighters, restoredby his divine power to the Danes that vision which they had lostby sleights; for he ever cherished them with fatherly love.  Heinstructed them to shower stones to batter the Hellespontines,who used spells to harden their bodies against weapons.  Thusboth companies slew one another and perished.  Jarmerik lost bothfeet and both hands, and his trunk was rolled among the dead.BRODER, little fit for it, followed him as king.

The next king was SIWALD.  His son SNIO took vigorously to rovingin his father's old age, and not only preserved the fortunes ofhis country, but even restored them, lessened as they were, totheir former estate.  Likewise, when he came to the sovereignty,he crushed the insolence of the champions Eskil and Alkil, and bythis conquest reunited to his country Skaane, which had beensevered from the general jurisdiction of Denmark.  At last heconceived a passion for the daughter of the King of the Goths; itwas returned, and he sent secret messengers to seek a chance ofmeeting her.  These men were intercepted by the father of thedamsel and hanged: thus paying dearly for their rash mission.Snio, wishing to avenge their death, invaded Gothland.  Its kingmet him with his forces, and the aforesaid champions challengedhim to send strong men to fight.  Snio laid down as condition ofthe duel, that each of the two kings should either lose his ownempire or gain that of the other, according to the fortune of thechampions, and that the kingdom of the conquered should be stakedas the prize of the victory.  The result was that the King of theGoths was beaten by reason of the ill-success of his defenders,and had to quit his kingdom for the Danes.  Snio, learning thatthis king's daughter had been taken away at the instance of herfather to wed the King of the Swedes, sent a man clad in raggedattire, who used to ask alms on the public roads, to try hermind.  And while he lay, as beggars do, by the threshold, hechanced to see the queen, and whined in a weak voice, "Snio lovesthee."  She feigned not to have heard the sound that stole on herears, and neither looked nor stepped back, but went on to thepalace, then returned straightway, and said in a low whisper,which scarcely reached his ears, "I love him who loves me"; andhaving said this she walked away.

The beggar rejoiced that she had returned a word of love, and, ashe sat on the next day at the gate, when the queen came up, hesaid, briefly as ever, "Wishes should have a tryst."  Again sheshrewdly caught his cunning speech, and passed on, dissemblingwholly.  A little later she passed by her questioner, and saidthat she would shortly go to Bocheror; for this was the spot towhich she meant to flee.  And when the beggar heard this, heinsisted, with his wonted shrewd questions, upon being told afitting time for the tryst.  The woman was as cunning as he, andas little clear of speech, and named as quickly as she could thebeginning of the winter.

Her train, who had caught a flying word of this love-message,took her great cleverness for the raving of utter folly.  Andwhen Snio had been told all this by the beggar, he contrived tocarry the queen off in a vessel; for she got away under pretenceof bathing, and took her husband's treasures.  After this therewere constant wars between Snio and the King of Sweden, whereofthe issue was doubtful and the victory changeful; the one kingseeking to regain his lawful, the other to keep his unlawfullove.

At this time the yield of crops was ruined by most inclementweather, and a mighty dearth of corn befell.  Victuals began tobe scarce, and the commons were distressed with famine, so thatthe king, anxiously pondering how to relieve the hardness of thetimes, and seeing that the thirsty spent somewhat more than thehungry, introduced thrift among the people.  He abolisheddrinking-bouts, and decreed that no drink should be prepared fromgram, thinking that the bitter famine should be got rid of byprohibiting needless drinking, and that plentiful food could belevied as a loan on thirst.

Then a certain wanton slave of his belly, lamenting theprohibition against drink, adopted a deep kind of knavery, andfound a new way to indulge his desires.  He broke the public lawof temperance by his own excess, contriving to get at what heloved by a device both cunning and absurd.  For he sipped theforbidden liquor drop by drop, and so satisfied his longing to betipsy.  When he was summoned for this by the king, he declaredthat there was no stricter observer of sobriety than he, inasmuchas he mortified his longing to quaff deep by this device formoderate drinking.  He persisted in the fault with which he wastaxed, saying that he only sucked.  At last he was also menacedwith threats, and forbidden not only to drink, but even to sip;yet he could not check his habits.  For in order to enjoy theunlawful thing in a lawful way, and not to have his throatsubject to the command of another, he sopped morsels of bread inliquor, and fed on the pieces thus soaked with drink; tastingslowly, so as to prolong the desired debauch, and attaining,though in no unlawful manner, the forbidden measure of satiety.

Thus his stubborn and frantic intemperance risked his life, allfor luxury; and, undeterred even by the threats of the king, hefortified his rash appetite to despise every peril.  A secondtime he was summoned by the king on the charge of disobeying hisregulation.  Yet he did not even theft cease to defend his act,but maintained that he had in no wise contravened the royaldecree, and that the temperance prescribed by the ordinance hadbeen in no way violated by that which allured him; especially asthe thrift ordered in the law of plain living was so described,that it was apparently forbidden to drink liquor, but not to eatit.  Then the king called heaven to witness, and swore by thegeneral good, that if he ventured on any such thing hereafter hewould punish him with death.  But the man thought that death wasnot so bad as temperance, and that it was easier to quit lifethan luxury; and he again boiled the grain in water, and thenfermented the liquor; whereupon, despairing of any further pleato excuse his appetite, he openly indulged in drink, and turnedto his cups again unabashed.  Giving up cunning for effrontery,he chose rather to await the punishment of the king than to turnsober.  Therefore, when the king asked him why he had so oftenmade free to use the forbidden thing, he said:

"O king, this craving is begotten, not so much of my thirst, asof my goodwill towards thee!  For I remembered that the funeralrites of a king must be paid with a drinking-bout.  Therefore,led by good judgment more than the desire to swill, I have, bymixing the forbidden liquid, taken care that the feast whereatthy obsequies are performed should not, by reason of the scarcityof corn, lack the due and customary drinking.  Now I do not doubtthat thou wilt perish of famine before the rest, and be the firstto need a tomb; for thou hast passed this strange law of thriftin fear that thou wilt be thyself the first to lack food.  Thouart thinking for thyself, and not for others, when thou bringestthyself to start such strange miserly ways."

This witty quibbling turned the anger of the king into shame; andwhen he saw that his ordinance for the general good came home inmockery to himself, he thought no more of the public profit, butrevoked the edict, relaxing his purpose sooner than anger hissubjects.

Whether it was that the soil had too little rain, or that it wastoo hard baked, the crops, as I have said, were slack, and thefields gave but little produce; so that the land lacked victual,and was worn with a weary famine.  The stock of food began tofail, and no help was left to stave off hunger.  Then, at theproposal of Agg and of Ebb, it was provided by a decree of thepeople that the old men and the tiny children should be slain;that all who were too young to bear arms should be taken out ofthe land, and only the strong should be vouchsafed their owncountry; that none but able-bodied soldiers and husbandmen shouldcontinue to abide under their own roofs and in the houses oftheir fathers.  When Agg and Ebb brought news of this to theirmother Gambaruk, she saw that the authors of this infamous decreehad found safety in crime.  Condemning the decision of theassembly, she said that it was wrong to relieve distress bymurder of kindred, and declared that a plan both more honourableand more desirable for the good of their souls and bodies wouldbe, to preserve respect towards their parents and children, andchoose by lot men who should quit the country.  And if the lotfell on old men and weak, then the stronger should offer to gointo exile in their place, and should of their own free willundertake to bear the burden of it for the feeble.  But those menwho had the heart to save their lives by crime and impiety, andto prosecute their parents and their children by so abominable adecree, did not deserve life; for they would be doing a work ofcruelty and not of love.  Finally, all those whose own lives weredearer to them than the love of their parents or their children,deserved but ill of their country.  These words were reported tothe assembly, and assented to by the vote of the majority.  Sothe fortunes of all were staked upon the lot and those upon whomit fell were doomed to be banished.  Thus those who had been lothto obey necessity of their own accord had now to accept the awardof chance.  So they sailed first to Bleking, and then, sailingpast Moring, they came to anchor at Gothland; where, according toPaulus, they are said to have been prompted by the goddess Friggto take the name of the Longobardi (Lombards), whose nation theyafterwards founded.  In the end they landed at Rugen, and,abandoning their ships, began to march overland.  They crossedand wasted a great portion of the world; and at last, finding anabode in Italy, changed the ancient name of the nation for theirown.

Meanwhile, the land of the Danes, where the tillers laboured lessand less, and all traces of the furrows were covered withovergrowth, began to look like a forest.  Almost stripped of itspleasant native turf, it bristled with the dense unshapely woodsthat grew up.  Traces of this are yet seen in the aspect of itsfields.  What were once acres fertile in grain are now seen to bedotted with trunks of trees; and where of old the tillers turnedthe earth up deep and scattered the huge clods there has nowsprung up a forest covering the fields, which still bear thetracks of ancient tillage.  Had not these lands remained untilledand desolate with long overgrowth, the tenacious roots of treescould never have shared the soil of one and the same land withthe furrows made by the plough.  Moreover, the mounds which menlaboriously built up of old on the level ground for the burial ofthe dead are now covered by a mass of woodland.  Many piles ofstones are also to be seen interspersed among the forest glades.These were once scattered over the whole country, but thepeasants carefully gathered the boulders and piled them into aheap that they might not prevent furrows being cut in alldirections; for they would sooner sacrifice a little of the landthan find the whole of it stubborn.  From this work, done by thetoil of the peasants for the easier working of the fields, it isjudged that the population in ancient times was greater than thepresent one, which is satisfied with small fields, and keeps itsagriculture within narrower limits than those of the ancienttillage.  Thus the present generation is amazed to behold that ithas exchanged a soil which could once produce grain for one onlyfit to grow acorns, and the plough-handle and the cornstalks fora landscape studded with trees.  Let this account of Snio, whichI have put together as truly as I could, suffice.

Snio was succeeded by BIORN; and after him HARALD becamesovereign.  Harald's son GORM won no mean place of honour amongthe ancient generals of the Danes by his record of doughty deeds.For he ventured into fresh fields, preferring to practise hisinherited valour, not in war, but in searching the secrets ofnature; and, just as other kings are stirred by warlike ardour,so his heart thirsted to look into marvels; either what he couldexperience himself, or what were merely matters of report.  Andbeing desirous to go and see all things foreign andextraordinary, he thought that he must above all test a reportwhich he had heard from the men of Thule concerning the abode ofa certain Geirrod.  For they boasted past belief of the mightypiles of treasure in that country, but said that the way wasbeset with peril, and hardly passable by mortal man.  For thosewho had tried it declared that it was needful to sail over theocean that goes round the lands, to leave the sun and starsbehind, to journey down into chaos, and at last to pass into aland where no light was and where darkness reigned eternally.

But the warrior trampled down in his soul all fear of the dangersthat beset him.  Not that he desired booty, but glory; for hehoped for a great increase of renown if he ventured on a whollyunattempted quest.  Three hundred men announced that they had thesame desire as the king; and he resolved that Thorkill, who hadbrought the news, should be chosen to guide them on the journey,as he knew the ground and was versed in the approaches to thatcountry.  Thorkill did not refuse the task, and advised that, tomeet the extraordinary fury of the sea they had to cross,strongly-made vessels should be built, fitted with many knottedcords and close-set nails, filled with great store of provision,and covered above with ox-hides to protect the inner spaces ofthe ships from the spray of the waves breaking in.  Then theysailed off in only three galleys, each containing a hundredchosen men.

Now when they had come to Halogaland (Helgeland), they lost theirfavouring breezes, and were driven and tossed divers ways overthe seas in perilous voyage.  At last, in extreme want of food,and lacking even bread, they staved off hunger with a littlepottage.  Some days passed, and they heard the thunder of a stormbrawling in the distance, as if it were deluging the rocks.  Bythis perceiving that land was near, they bade a youth of greatnimbleness climb to the masthead and look out; and he reportedthat a precipitous island was in sight.  All were overjoyed, andgazed with thirsty eyes at the country at which he pointed,eagerly awaiting the refuge of the promised shore.  At last theymanaged to reach it, and made their way out over the heights thatblocked their way, along very steep paths, into the higherground.  Then Thorkill told them to take no more of the herdsthat were running about in numbers on the coast, than would serveonce to appease their hunger.  If they disobeyed, the guardiangods of the spot would not let them depart.  But the seamen, moreanxious to go on filling their bellies than to obey orders,postponed counsels of safety to the temptations of gluttony, andloaded the now emptied holds of their ships with the carcases ofslaughtered cattle.  These beasts were very easy to capture,because they gathered in amazement at the unwonted sight of men,their fears being made bold.  On the following night monstersdashed down upon the shore, filled the forest with clamour, andbeleaguered and beset the ships.  One of them, huger than therest, strode over the waters, armed with a mighty club.  Comingclose up to them, he bellowed out that they should never sailaway till they had atoned for the crime they had committed inslaughtering the flock, and had made good the losses of the herdof the gods by giving up one man for each of their ships.Thorkill yielded to these threats; and, in order to preserve thesafety of all by imperilling a few, singled out three men by lotand gave them up.

This done, a favouring wind took them, and they sailed to furtherPermland.  It is a region of eternal cold, covered with very deepsnows, and not sensible to the force even of the summer heats;full of pathless forests, not fertile in grain and haunted bybeasts uncommon elsewhere.  Its many rivers pour onwards in ahissing, foaming flood, because of the reefs imbedded in theirchannels.

Here Thorkill drew up his ships ashore, and bade them pitch theirtents on the beach, declaring that they had come to a spot whencethe passage to Geirrod would be short.  Moreover, he forbade themto exchange any speech with those that came up to them, declaringthat nothing enabled the monsters to injure strangers so much asuncivil words on their part: it would be therefore safer for hiscompanions to keep silence; none but he, who had seen all themanners and customs of this nation before, could speak safely. As twilight approached, a man of extraordinary bigness greetedthe sailors by their names, and came among them.  All wereaghast, but Thorkill told them to greet his arrival cheerfully,telling them that this was Gudmund, the brother of Geirrod, andthe most faithful guardian in perils of all men who landed inthat spot.  When the man asked why all the rest thus keptsilence, he answered that they were very unskilled in hislanguage, and were ashamed to use a speech they did not know.Then Gudmund invited them to be his guests, and took them up incarriages.  As they went forward, they saw a river which could becrossed by a bridge of gold.  They wished to go over it, butGudmund restrained them, telling them that by this channel naturehad divided the world of men from the world of monsters, and thatno mortal track might go further.  Then they reached the dwellingof their guide; and here Thorkill took his companions apart andwarned them to behave like men of good counsel amidst the diverstemptations chance might throw in their way; to abstain from thefood of the stranger, and nourish their bodies only on their own;and to seek a seat apart from the natives, and have no contactwith any of them as they lay at meat.  For if they partook ofthat food they would lose recollection of all things, and mustlive for ever in filthy intercourse amongst ghastly hordes ofmonsters.  Likewise he told them that they must keep their handsoff the servants and the cups of the people.

Round the table stood twelve noble sons of Gudmund, and as manydaughters of notable beauty.  When Gudmund saw that the kingbarely tasted what his servants brought, he reproached him withrepulsing his kindness, and complained that it was a slight onthe host.  But Thorkill was not at a loss for a fitting excuse.He reminded him that men who took unaccustomed food oftensuffered from it seriously, and that the king was not ungratefulfor the service rendered by another, but was merely taking careof his health, when he refreshed himself as he was wont, andfurnished his supper with his own viands.  An act, therefore,that was only done in the healthy desire to escape some bane,ought in no wise to be put down to scorn.  Now when Gudmund sawthat the temperance of his guest had baffled his treacherouspreparations, he determined to sap their chastity, if he couldnot weaken their abstinence, and eagerly strained every nerve ofhis wit to enfeeble their self-control.  For he offered the kinghis daughter in marriage, and promised the rest that they shouldhave whatever women of his household they desired.  Most of theminclined to his offer: but Thorkill by his healthy admonitionsprevented them, as he had done before, from falling intotemptation.

With wonderful management Thorkill divided his heed between thesuspicious host and the delighted guests.  Four of the Danes, towhom lust was more than their salvation, accepted the offer; theinfection maddened them, distraught their wits, and blotted outtheir recollection: for they are said never to have been in theirright mind after this.  If these men had kept themselves withinthe rightful bounds of temperance, they would have equalled theglories of Hercules, surpassed with their spirit the bravery ofgiants, and been ennobled for ever by their wondrous services totheir country.

Gudmund, stubborn to his purpose, and still spreading his nets,extolled the delights of his garden, and tried to lure the kingthither to gather fruits, desiring to break down his constantwariness by the lust of the eye and the baits of the palate.  Theking, as before, was strengthened against these treacheries byThorkill, and rejected this feint of kindly service; he excusedhimself from accepting it on the plea that he must hasten on hisjourney.  Gudmund perceived that Thorkill was shrewder than he atevery point; so, despairing to accomplish his treachery, hecarried them all across the further side of the river, and letthem finish their journey.

They went on; and saw, not far off, a gloomy, neglected town,looking more like a cloud exhaling vapour.  Stakes interspersedamong the battlements showed the severed heads of warriors anddogs of great ferocity were seen watching before the doors toguard the entrance.  Thorkill threw them a horn smeared with fatto lick, and so, at slight cost, appeased their most furiousrage.  High up the gates lay open to enter, and they climbed totheir level with ladders, entering with difficulty.  Inside thetown was crowded with murky and misshapen phantoms, and it washard to say whether their shrieking figures were more ghastly tothe eye or to the ear; everything was foul, and the reeking mireafflicted the nostrils of the visitors with its unbearablestench.  Then they found the rocky dwelling which Geirrod wasrumoured to inhabit for his palace.  They resolved to visit itsnarrow and horrible ledge, but stayed their steps and halted inpanic at the very entrance.  Then Thorkill, seeing that they wereof two minds, dispelled their hesitation to enter by manfulencouragement, counselling them, to restrain themselves, and notto touch any piece of gear in the house they were about to enter,albeit it seemed delightful to have or pleasant to behold; tokeep their hearts as far from all covetousness as from fear;neither to desire what was pleasant to take, nor dread what wasawful to look upon, though they should find themselves amidstabundance of both these things.  If they did, their greedy handswould suddenly be bound fast, unable to tear themselves away fromthe thing they touched, and knotted up with it as by inextricablebonds.  Moreover, they should enter in order, four by four.

Broder and Buchi (Buk?) were the first to show courage to attemptto enter the vile palace; Thorkill with the king followed them,and the rest advanced behind these in ordered ranks.

Inside, the house was seen to be ruinous throughout, and filledwith a violent and abominable reek.  And it also teemed witheverything that could disgust the eye or the mind: the door-postswere begrimed with the soot of ages, the wall was plastered withfilth, the roof was made up of spear-heads, the flooring wascovered with snakes and bespattered with all manner ofuncleanliness.  Such an unwonted sight struck terror into thestrangers, and, over all, the acrid and incessant stench assailedtheir afflicted nostrils.  Also bloodless phantasmal monstershuddled on the iron seats, and the places for sitting were railedoff by leaden trellises; and hideous doorkeepers stood at watchon the thresholds.  Some of these, armed with clubs lashedtogether, yelled, while others played a gruesome game, tossing agoat's hide from one to the other with mutual motion of goatishbacks.

Here Thorkill again warned the men, and forbade them to stretchforth their covetous hands rashly to the forbidden things.  Goingon through the breach in the crag, they beheld an old man withhis body pierced through, sitting not far off, on a lofty seatfacing the side of the rock that had been rent away.  Moreover,three women, whose bodies were covered with tumours, and whoseemed to have lost the strength of their back-bones, filledadjoining seats.  Thorkill's companions were very curious; andhe, who well knew the reason of the matter, told them that longago the god Thor had been provoked by the insolence of the giantsto drive red-hot irons through the vitals of Geirrod, who strovewith him, and that the iron had slid further, torn up themountain, and battered through its side; while the women had beenstricken by the might of his thunderbolts, and had been punished(so he declared) for their attempt on the same deity, by havingtheir bodies broken.

As the men were about to depart thence, there were disclosed tothem seven butts hooped round with belts of gold; and from thesehung circlets of silver entwined with them in manifold links.Near these was found the tusk of a strange beast, tipped at bothends with gold.  Close by was a vast stag-horn, laboriouslydecked with choice and flashing gems, and this also did not lackchasing.  Hard by was to be seen a very heavy bracelet.  One manwas kindled with an inordinate desire for this bracelet, and laidcovetous hands upon the gold, not knowing that the glorious metalcovered deadly mischief, and that a fatal bane lay hid under theshining spoil.  A second also, unable to restrain hiscovetousness, reached out his quivering hands to the horn.  Athird, matching the confidence of the others, and having nocontrol over his fingers, ventured to shoulder the tusk.  Thespoil seemed alike lovely to look upon and desirable to enjoy,for all that met the eye was fair and tempting to behold.  Butthe bracelet suddenly took the form of a snake, and attacked himwho was carrying it with its poisoned tooth; the horn lengthenedout into a serpent, and took the life of the man who bore it; thetusk wrought itself into a sword, and plunged into the vitals ofits bearer.

The rest dreaded the fate of perishing with their friends, andthought that the guiltless would be destroyed like the guilty;they durst not hope that even innocence would be safe.  Then theside-door of another room showed them a narrow alcove: and aprivy chamber with a yet richer treasure was revealed, whereinarms were laid out too great for those of human stature.  Amongthese were seen a royal mantle, a handsome hat, and a beltmarvellously wrought.  Thorkill, struck with amazement at thesethings, gave rein to his covetousness, and cast off all hispurposed self-restraint.  He who so oft had trained others couldnot so much as conquer his own cravings.  For he laid his handupon the mantle, and his rash example tempted the rest to join inhis enterprise of plunder.  Thereupon the recess shook from itslowest foundations, and began suddenly to reel and totter.Straightway the women raised a shriek that the wicked robberswere being endured too long.  Then they, who were before supposedto be half-dead or lifeless phantoms, seemed to obey the cries ofthe women, and, leaping suddenly up from their seats, attackedthe strangers with furious onset.  The other creatures bellowedhoarsely.

But Broder and Buchi fell to their old and familiar arts, andattacked the witches, who ran at them, with a shower of spearsfrom every side; and with the missiles from their bows and slingsthey crushed the array of monsters.  There could be no strongeror more successful way to repulse them; but only twenty men outof all the king's company were rescued by the intervention ofthis archery; the rest were torn in pieces by the monsters.  Thesurvivors returned to the river, and were ferried over byGudmund, who entertained them at his house.  Long and often as hebesought them, he could not keep them back; so at last he gavethem presents and let them go.

Buchi relaxed his watch upon himself; his self-control becameunstrung, and he forsook the virtue in which he hithertorejoiced.  For he conceived an incurable love for one of thedaughters of Gudmund, and embraced her; but he obtained a brideto his undoing, for soon his brain suddenly began to whirl, andhe lost his recollection.  Thus the hero who had subdued all themonsters and overcome all the perils was mastered by passion forone girl; his soul strayed far from temperance, and he lay undera wretched sensual yoke.  For the sake of respect, he started toaccompany the departing king; but as he was about to ford theriver in his carriage, his wheels sank deep, he was caught up inthe violent eddies and destroyed.

The king bewailed his friend's disaster and departed hastening onhis voyage. This was at first prosperous, but afterwards he wastossed by bad weather; his men perished of hunger, and but fewsurvived, so that he began to feel awe in his heart, and fell tomaking vows to heaven, thinking the gods alone could help him inhis extreme need.  At last the others besought sundry powersamong the gods, and thought they ought to sacrifice to themajesty of divers deities; but the king, offering both vows andpeace-offerings to Utgarda-Loki, obtained that fair season ofweather for which he prayed.

Coming home, and feeling that he had passed through all theseseas and toils, he thought it was time for his spirit, weariedwith calamities, to withdraw from his labours.  So he took aqueen from Sweden, and exchanged his old pursuits for meditativeleisure.  His life was prolonged in the utmost peace andquietness; but when he had almost come to the end of his days,certain men persuaded him by likely arguments that souls wereimmortal; so that he was constantly turning over in his mind thequestions, to what abode he was to fare when the breath left hislimbs, or what reward was earned by zealous adoration of thegods.

While he was thus inclined, certain men who wished ill toThorkill came and told Gorm that it was needful to consult thegods, and that assurance about so great a matter must be soughtof the oracles of heaven, since it was too deep for human wit andhard for mortals to discover.

Therefore, they said, Utgarda-Loki must be appeased, and no manwould accomplish this more fitly than Thorkill.  Others, again,laid information against him as guilty of treachery and an enemyof the king's life.  Thorkill, seeing himself doomed to extremeperil, demanded that his accusers should share his journey.  Thenthey who had aspersed an innocent man saw that the peril they haddesigned against the life of another had recoiled uponthemselves, and tried to take back their plan.  But vainly didthey pester the ears of the king; he forced them to sail underthe command of Thorkill, and even upbraided them with cowardice.Thus, when a mischief is designed against another, it is commonlysure to strike home to its author.  And when these men saw thatthey were constrained, and could not possibly avoid the peril,they covered their ship with ox-hides, and filled it withabundant store of provision.

In this ship they sailed away, and came to a sunless land, whichknew not the stars, was void of daylight, and seemed toovershadow them with eternal night.  Long they sailed under thisstrange sky; at last their timber fell short, and they lackedfuel; and, having no place to boil their meat in, they staved offtheir hunger with raw viands.  But most of those who atecontracted extreme disease, being glutted with undigested food.For the unusual diet first made a faintness steal gradually upontheir stomachs; then the infection spread further, and the maladyreached the vital parts.  Thus there was danger in eitherextreme, which made it hurtful not to eat, and perilous toindulge; for it was found both unsafe to feed and bad for them toabstain.  Then, when they were beginning to be in utter despair,a gleam of unexpected help relieved them, even as the stringbreaks most easily when it is stretched tightest.  For suddenlythe weary men saw the twinkle of a fire at no great distance, andconceived a hope of prolonging their lives.  Thorkill thoughtthis fire a heaven-sent relief, and resolved to go and take someof it.

To be surer of getting back to his friends, Thorkill fastened ajewel upon the mast-head, to mark it by the gleam.  When he gotto the shore, his eyes fell on a cavern in a close defile, towhich a narrow way led.  Telling his companions to await himoutside, he went in, and saw two men, swart and very huge, withhorny noses, feeding their fire with any chance-given fuel.Moreover, the entrance was hideous, the door-posts were decayed,the walls grimy with mould, the roof filthy, and the floorswarming with snakes; all of which disgusted the eye as much asthe mind.  Then one of the giants greeted him, and said that hehad begun a most difficult venture in his burning desire to visita strange god, and his attempt to explore with curious search anuntrodden region beyond the world.  Yet he promised to tellThorkill the paths of the journey he proposed to make, if hewould deliver three true judgments in the form of as manysayings.  Then said Thorkill: "In good truth, I do not rememberever to have seen a household with more uncomely noses; nor haveI ever come to a spot where I had less mind to live."  Also hesaid: "That, I think, is my best foot which can get out of thisforemost."

The giant was pleased with the shrewdness of Thorkill, andpraised his sayings, telling him that he must first travel to agrassless land which was veiled in deep darkness; but he mustfirst voyage for four days, rowing incessantly, before he couldreach his goal.  There he could visit Utgarda-Loki, who hadchosen hideous and grisly caves for his filthy dwelling. Thorkill was much aghast at being bidden to go on a voyage solong and hazardous; but his doubtful hopes prevailed over hispresent fears, and he asked for some live fuel.  Then said thegiant: "If thou needest fire, thou must deliver three morejudgments in like sayings."  Then said Thorkill: "Good counsel isto be obeyed, though a mean fellow gave it."  Likewise: "I havegone so far in rashness, that if I can get back I shall owe mysafety to none but my own legs."  And again: "Were I free toretreat this moment, I would take good care never to come back."

Thereupon Thorkill took the fire along to his companions; andfinding a kindly wind, landed on the fourth day at the appointedharbour.  With his crew he entered a land where an aspect ofunbroken night checked the vicissitude of light and darkness.  Hecould hardly see before him, but beheld a rock of enormous size.Wishing to explore it, he told his companions, who were standingposted at the door, to strike a fire from flints as a timelysafeguard against demons, and kindle it in the entrance.  Then hemade others bear a light before him, and stooped his body throughthe narrow jaws of the cavern, where he beheld a number of ironseats among a swarm of gliding serpents.  Next there met his eyea sluggish mass of water gently flowing over a sandy bottom.  Hecrossed this, and approached a cavern which sloped somewhat moresteeply.  Again, after this, a foul and gloomy room was disclosedto the visitors, wherein they saw Utgarda-Loki, laden hand andfoot with enormous chains.  Each of his reeking hairs was aslarge and stiff as a spear of cornel.  Thorkill (his companionslending a hand), in order that his deeds might gain more credit,plucked one of these from the chin of Utgarda-Loki, who sufferedit.  Straightway such a noisome smell reached the bystanders,that they could not breathe without stopping their noses withtheir mantles.  They could scarcely make their way out, and werebespattered by the snakes which darted at them on every side.

Only five of Thorkill's company embarked with their captain: thepoison killed the rest.  The demons hung furiously over them, andcast their poisonous slaver from every side upon the men belowthem.  But the sailors sheltered themselves with their hides, andcast back the venom that fell upon them.  One man by chance atthis point wished to peep out; the poison touched his head, whichwas taken off his neck as if it had been severed with a sword.Another put his eyes out of their shelter, and when he broughtthem back under it they were blinded.  Another thrust forth hishand while unfolding his covering, and, when he withdrew his arm,it was withered by the virulence of the same slaver.  Theybesought their deities to be kinder to them; vainly, untilThorkill prayed to the god of the universe, and poured forth untohim libations as well as prayers; and thus, presently finding thesky even as before and the elements clear, he made a fair voyage.

And now they seemed to behold another world, and the way towardsthe life of man.  At last Thorkill landed in Germany, which hadthen been admitted to Christianity; and among its people he beganto learn how to worship God.  His band of men were almostdestroyed, because of the dreadful air they had breathed, and hereturned to his country accompanied by two men only, who hadescaped the worst.  But the corrupt matter which smeared his faceso disguised his person and original features that not even hisfriends knew him.  But when he wiped off the filth, he madehimself recognizable by those who saw him, and inspired the kingwith the greatest eagerness to hear about his quest.  But thedetraction of his rivals was not yet silenced; and some pretendedthat the king would die suddenly if he learnt Thorkill's tidings.The king was the more disposed to credit this saying, because hewas already credulous by reason of a dream which falselyprophesied the same thing.  Men were therefore hired by theking's command to slay Thorkill in the night.  But somehow he gotwind of it, left his bed unknown to all, and put a heavy log inhis place.  By this he baffled the treacherous device of theking, for the hirelings smote only the stock.

On the morrow Thorkill went up to the king as he sat at meat, andsaid: "I forgive thy cruelty and pardon thy error, in that thouhast decreed punishment, and not thanks, to him who brings goodtidings of his errand.  For thy sake I have devoted my life toall these afflictions, and battered it in all these perils; Ihoped that thou wouldst requite my services with much gratitude;and behold!  I have found thee, and thee alone, punish my valoursharpliest.  But I forbear all vengeance, and am satisfied withthe shame within thy heart -- if, after all, any shame visits thethankless -- as expiation for this wrongdoing towards me.  I havea right to surmise that thou art worse than all demons in fury,and all beasts in cruelty, if, after escaping the snares of allthese monsters, I have failed to be safe from thine."

The king desired to learn everything from Thorkill's own lips;and, thinking it hard to escape destiny, bade him relate what hadhappened in due order.  He listened eagerly to his recital ofeverything, till at last, when his own god was named, he couldnot endure him to be unfavourably judged.  For he could not bearto hear Utgarda-Loki reproached with filthiness, and so resentedhis shameful misfortunes, that his very life could not brook suchwords, and he yielded it up in the midst of Thorkill's narrative.Thus, whilst he was so zealous in the worship of a false god, hecame to find where the true prison of sorrows really was.Moreover, the reek of the hair, which Thorkill plucked from thelocks of the giant to testify to the greatness of his own deeds,was exhaled upon the bystanders, so that many perished of it.

After the death of Gorm, GOTRIK his son came to the throne.  Hewas notable not only for prowess but for generosity, and none cansay whether his courage or his compassion was the greater.  He sochastened his harshness with mercy, that he seemed tocounterweigh the one with the other.  At this time Gaut, the Kingof Norway, was visited by Ber (Biorn?) and Ref, men of Thule.Gaut treated Ref with attention and friendship, and presented himwith a heavy bracelet.

One of the courtiers, when he saw this, praised the greatness ofthe gift over-zealously, and declared that no one was equal toKing Gaut in kindliness.  But Ref, though he owed thanks for thebenefit, could not approve the inflated words of this extravagantpraiser, and said that Gotrik was more generous than Gaut. Wishing to crush the empty boast of the flatterer, he choserather to bear witness to the generosity of the absent thantickle with lies the vanity of his benefactor who was present.For another thing, he thought it somewhat more desirable to becharged with ingratitude than to support with his assent suchidle and boastful praise, and also to move the king by the solemntruth than to beguile him with lying flatteries.  But Ulfpersisted not only in stubbornly repeating his praises of theking, but in bringing them to the proof; and proposed theirgainsayer a wager.

With his consent Ref went to Denmark, and found Gotrik seated instate, and dealing out the pay to his soldiers.  When the kingasked him who he was, he said that his name was "Fox-cub"  Theanswer filled some with mirth and some with marvel, and Gotriksaid, "Yea, and it is fitting that a fox should catch his prey inhis mouth."  And thereupon he drew a bracelet from his arm,called the man to him, and put it between his lips.  StraightwayRef put it upon his arm, which he displayed to them all adornedwith gold, but the other arm he kept hidden as lacking ornament;for which shrewdness he received a gift equal to the first fromthat hand of matchless generosity.  At this he was overjoyed, notso much because the reward was great, as because he had won hiscontention.  And when the king learnt from him about the wager hehad laid, he rejoiced that he had been lavish to him more byaccident than of set purpose, and declared that he got morepleasure from the giving than the receiver from the gift.  So Refreturned to Norway and slew his opponent, who refused to pay thewager.  Then he took the daughter of Gaut captive, and broughther to Gotrik for his own.

Gotrik, who is also called Godefride, carried his arms againstforeigners, and increased his strength and glory by hissuccessful generalship.  Among his memorable deeds were the termsof tribute he imposed upon the Saxons; namely, that whenever achange of kings occurred among the Danes, their princes shoulddevote a hundred snow-white horses to the new king on hisaccession.  But if the Saxons should receive a new chief upon achange in the succession, this chief was likewise to pay theaforesaid tribute obediently, and bow at the outset of his powerto the sovereign majesty of Denmark; thereby acknowledging thesupremacy of our nation, and solemnly confessing his ownsubjection.  Nor was it enough for Gotrik to subjugate Germany:he appointed Ref on a mission to try the strength of Sweden.  TheSwedes feared to slay him with open violence, but ventured to actlike bandits, and killed him, as he slept, with the blow of astone.  For, hanging a millstone above him, they cut itsfastenings, and let it drop upon his neck as he lay beneath.  Toexpiate this crime it was decreed that each of the ringleadersshould pay twelve golden talents, while each of the common peopleshould pay Gotrik one ounce.  Men called this "the Fox-cub'stribute". (Refsgild).

Meanwhile it befell that Karl, King of the Franks, crushedGermany in war, and forced it not only to embrace the worship ofChristianity, but also to obey his authority.  When Gotrik heardof this, he attacked the nations bordering on the Elbe, andattempted to regain under his sway as of old the realm of Saxony,which eagerly accepted the yoke of Karl, and preferred the Romanto the Danish arms.  Karl had at this time withdrawn hisvictorious camp beyond the Rhine, and therefore forbore to engagethe stranger enemy, being prevented by the intervening river. But when he was intending to cross once more to subdue the powerof Gotrik, he was summoned by Leo the Pope of the Romans todefend the city.

Obeying this command, Karl intrusted his son Pepin with theconduct of the war aganst Gotrik; so that while he himself wasworking against a distant foe, Pepin might manage the conflict hehad undertaken with his neighbour.  For Karl was distracted bytwo anxieties, and had to furnish sufficient out of a scanty bandto meet both of them.  Meanwhile Gotrik won a glorious victoryover the Saxons.  Then gathering new strength, and mustering alarger body of forces, he resolved to avenge the wrong he hadsuffered in losing his sovereignty, not only upon the Saxons, butupon the whole people of Germany.  He began by subduing Frieslandwith his fleet.

This province lies very low, and whenever the fury of the oceanbursts tho dykes that bar its waves, it is wont to receive thewhole mass of the deluge over its open plains.  On this countryGotrik imposed a kind of tribute, which was not so much harsh asstrange.  I will briefly relate its terms and the manner of it.First, a building was arranged, two hundred and forty feet inlength, and divided into twelve spaces; each of these stretchingover an interval of twenty feet, and thus making together, whenthe whole room was exhausted, the aforesaid total.  Now at theupper end of this building sat the king's treasurer, and in aline with him at its further end was displayed a round shield.When the Frisians came to pay tribute, they used to cast theircoins one by one into the hollow of this shield; but only thosecoins which struck the ear of the distant toll-gatherer with adistinct clang were chosen by him, as he counted, to be reckonedamong the royal tribute.  The result was that the collector onlyreckoned that money towards the treasury of which his distant earcaught the sound as it fell.  But that of which the sound wasduller, and which fell out of his earshot, was received indeedinto the treasury, but did not count as any increase to the sumpaid.  Now many coins that were cast in struck with no audibleloudness whatever on the collector's ear, so that men who came topay their appointed toll sometimes squandered much of their moneyin useless tribute.  Karl is said to have freed them afterwardsfrom the burden of this tax.  After Gotrik had crossed Friesland,and Karl had now come back from Rome, Gotrik determined to swoopdown upon the further districts of Germany, but was treacherouslyattacked by one of his own servants, and perished at home by thesword of a traitor.  When Karl heard this, he leapt up overjoyed,declaring that nothing more delightful had ever fallen to his lotthan this happy chance.

ENDNOTES:(1)  Furthest Thule -- The names of Icelanders have thus crept into the account of a battle fought before the discovery of Iceland.

Book 9